Despite being a 3 days-week, the British biotech ecosystem has decided to finish a few things off before going to enjoy the good weather, wisely sponsored by Her Majesty. Thus, it has been one of the busiest weeks in months. Talking about busy people, we know it always gets a little hectic when leaving a company, all these ends to tie up! Hal Barron, M.D., CSO at GSK knows this well enough as he is leaving the big pharma to become Altos Lab’s CEO at the end of this year: Affinivax deal on the horizon and $1.9 billion Sierra Oncology buyout last month. Meanwhile, Cathay has raised a €500 million fund and they have plans for the UK. Interested in the liquid biopsy space? ANGLE Plc has received fantastic news from the FDA. A few companies have raised serious series B and seed rounds and Alchemab publications are keeping up with the expectations. Make yourself a coffee (with good arabica beans, if possible) and ensure it is warm enough, so it has some chances to still be enjoyable by the end of this long Cambridge Biocapital edition. Let’s dive in!

Oxford University-spinout moa Technology has raised £35.24 million series B. The round was co-led by new investor Lansdowne Partners and existing investors Oxford Science Enterprises and Parkwalk Advisors. It was seconded by BGF Investments, Bits x Bites Growth Fund, IP Group, and University of Oxford. moa is utilising miniaturised plants and phenotypic analysis to discover elusive novel modes of action that can control resistant weeds plaguing crops worldwide. Leveraging their proprietary tech platforms (Galaxy, Target and Select), moa is developing a pipeline of safer and sustainable novel herbicides that can help food security production. No herbicide that directly addresses the weed-resistance issue has reached markets in the last 30 years.

Redx has raised £34 million in funding after placement of shares. The funding has been raised through a Bookbuild process in which a company generates investor demand attempting to obtain the best price for the shares. The company placed 58,070,956 Placing Shares at 59 p/share. Redx’s current investors are Redmile Groupand Sofinnova. The mechanism has attracted Invus, a healthcare specialised advisor. Redx is a clinical-stage biotech and proceeds will be used to bring forward clinical studies. These include topline data from Phase II for small molecule inhibitor (RXC004) targeting Wnt-ligand dependent cancers, Phase IIa study for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) small molecule (RXC007), and its inhibitor therapy (RXC008) targeting Crohn’s Disease-associated fibrosis. In addition, three additional IND submissions are expected by 2025.

London-based Florence has raised 28.5 million series B. The round was led by Axa Venture Partners and seconded by Roo Capital and SEEK Investments. Florence is tackling the global shortage of healthcare workers connecting nurses with open shifts minimising agency intermediation time. The company was launched in 2017 by NHS doctor Charles Armitage and ex-British Army officer Dan Blake. It has partnered with 90,000 workers and over 2000 organisations, and has raised £35.5 million in total.

Cambridge-based Colorifix has raised £18 million series B. The round was led by H&M Group via its investment arm H&M CO:LAB, and seconded by Sagana and Cambridge Enterprise. Previous investors include Bombyx Growth Fund, PDS Ventures, Regeneration.VC and newly-formed SynBioVen. Colorfix is pioneering the first fully biological dyeing process and has now entered the industrial-scale phase. The funding will be used to expand the team and operations in Europe and Asia, as most of the staff is currently located at Norwich Research Park.

Modern Synthesis has raised $4.1 million seed funding. The round was participated by AgFunder, Collaborative Fund, Acequia Capital, Petri Bio, Ponderosa Ventures, Possible Ventures, IMO Ventures, Taihill Venture, Parley or the Oceans, Climate Capital Collective and Pierre Denis (ex-CEO at Jimmy Choo). Modern Synthesis has literally grown a shoe in the lab leveraging bacteria to transform sugar from agricultural waste into biodegradable nanocellulose. Their proprietary technology allows for creating this biomaterial in less than 15 days. Biotextile space is projected to reach $2.2 billion market by 2026.

Oxford-based Theolytics has received £1 million grant from Innovate UK. Theolytics is developing a platform that harness viruses to tackle human disease, leveraging systematic phenotypic screening technologies for given population subsets. The proceedings will be utilised to bring to the clinic its lead oncolytic virus candidate. The project includes a collaboration with the University of Sheffield to investigate the candidate efficacy in drug-resistant myeloma models. Theolytics is backed by OxSciences, Epidarex Capital, Taiho Ventures and M Ventures.

Cambridge-based Enhanc3D Genomics has been awarded funding from Johnson & Johnson (QuickFire Challenge Grant) and one year of JLABS residency under the J&J’s Immunology Innovations QuickFire Challenge. The company is developing functional genomics technology to explore the non-coding regions across the human genome and map their 3D-organisation and interactions. Their GenLink3DTM platform allows to identify interactions potentially associated with disease, thus enabling biomarker identification. Enhanc3D was span out from Prof. Peter Fraser’s research at the Babraham Institute in 2020 and is backed by Bioqube Ventures, Start Codonand two private investors.

Cambridge-based Transine Therapeutics has raised £4.6 million extended seed round. The round was led by Epidarex Capital and seconded by the Dementia Discovery Fund. To date, the company has raised £13.7 million in seed funds. Transine is developing a novel class of therapeutics that bind mRNA to enhance translation of targeted proteins. They utilise their proprietary SINEUP drug discovery platform, which currently focuses on the central nervous system as well as ophthalmological indications. The proceedings will be used to develop further SINEUP and bring forward Transine was founded by Prof. Piero Carnicini and Prof. Stephano Gustincich, pioneers in the field of functional genomics and long non-coding RNA.

NRG Therapeutics has been awarded £2.68 million Biomedical Catalyst Innovate UK grant. NRG is developing first-in-class treatments for neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson and ALS. The company uses orally-bioavailable CNS-penetrating small molecules to inhibit the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (mPTP) in brain cells. The funding will be used to advance their mPTP inhibitors from lead optimisation to completion of IND-enabling GLP-toxicology studies, aiming to prove brain penetration, mitochondrial protection, a reduction in cell death and safe dosing in animal models.

Cathay Capital launches €500 million health fund to invest in life sciences and technology. The insurance company AXA, the pharma company Groupe Pierre Fabreand the French public investment bank Bpifrance are among the investors. Cathay Health Fund will make €5-50 million. investments in series A through series D in companies in Europe, North America and Asia, with a focus in San Francisco, New York, London, Cambridge, Paris, Basel and Shanghai. The key areas for the investments are life sciences tools, diagnostics, clinical trial innovation, advanced therapeutics, new care models, and next-generation medical devices and materials. The fund is led by Hongjie Hu, MBA (20 years industry expertise, ex-Temasek), Eric de La Fortelle, PhD, MBA (ex-MRC-LMB, ex-Roche), Jia-Yi Har (Philips Healthcare, Partners Group), and Steve Oesterle, MD (ex-Medtronic Senior Vice President of Medicine and Technology). Cathay Health deepens Cathay Capital’s commitment to the life science industry as the fund had previously made 34 investments in the ecosystem from its private equity and venture funds.

Zinc has raised £28 million Zinc Fund 2 to invest in the top 100 startups created in their program. The Fund is backed by British Business Bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds, Molten Ventures, Atomico and Taavet Hinrikus (Wise co-foudner). The cohort will start in October and will focus on B2B solutions for the environment and improvement of later quality of life. Up to 70 people will be selected and receive 12 months support and capital. This will be of particular relevance for ventures in the med-tech and digital health space. Zinc backed Vira Health earlier this year, which raised £9 million to further develop its app.

LifeArc and children’s charity Action medical Research have launched their £1 million annual funding round to support UK-based translational research focused on children with rare diseases. The fund aims to support with up to £250,000 per project a small number of projects by research-active professionals at UK universities, hospitals or research institutes. Deadline for submission is 21 June 2022.

According to a recent report from Ernst & Young for the Private Equity (PE) & Venture Capital (VC) Association, PE and VC-backed business employ 2 million people, collectively earning £58 billion. These businesses directly contribute generated £102 billion of the GDP (2021), 5% of the GDP, and 6% of the employment. The report is interesting enough and it is available here.

Alchemab has published peer-reviewed research demonstrating the potential of their Antibody-specific Bi-directional Encoder Representation and Transformers (AntiBERTa) technology. It is a 12-layer transformer model neural network that reads the components of an amino acid sequence and provides with binding-site prediction. AntiBERTa is the basis of Alchemab machine learning platform, which uses defined patient samples, deep B cell sequencing and computational analysis to identify common protective antibody responses from individuals resilient to specific diseases. The aim is to develop the platform to identify novel oncology and neurodegenerative targets.

Cambridge-based PharmEnable has signed a collaboration agreement with Denali Therapeutics. PharmaEnable will utilise its proprietary AI-drug discovery platform in combination with Denali’s expertise in drug delivery across the blood brain barrier, lead optimisation, development, and commercialisation. The aim is to identify small molecules targeting challenging targets. PharmEnable will receive an upfront cash payment and will be eligible to milestone payments, but no further details have been disclosed.

Birmingham-based MICA Biosystems has partnered with the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult to bring their regenerative medicine technology to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). MICA has developed a platform that uses proprietary technology to control patient’s stem cells in situ and repairs or replaces damaged tissue. Their lead applications is in spinal fusion, a costly surgical intervention that would be reduced to out-patient intervention using two needles and a take-home bandage. The collaboration builds on CGT Catapult expertise in bringing novel technologies through clinical trials.

The Imperial College Center of Excellence has launched AI-4-EB, a UK-wide consortium at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and engineering biology (EB). The consortium has been awarded £1.5. million funding by UKRI to leverage its capabilities in predictive design and lead optimisation across different EB systems and scales. The funding will enable the Center for Synthetic Biology to build on previous successes, such as LabGenius, Puraffinity and Phytoform Labs, as well as over £35 million in funding and over 500 publications in leading journals.

Cambridge-based Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) has agreed to £3.2 million funding to extend the Blue Sky collaboration with AstraZeneca beyond 2022. The collaboration started in 2014 and has yielded significant pre-clinical discoveries such as how circadian rhythms within heart cells help to change heart function, the first three-dimensional structural model of ataxia-telangiectasiamutated, a key regulator of DNA damage response, or a pathway that helps disposing unusable proteins produced in high quantity in cancer cells.

Cambridge-based Isogenica has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Wellmarker Bio (WMBIO) for the development of antibody-based cancer immunotherapy, Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) inhibitors, biomarkers and peptide libraries. Isogenica has also signed a licensing agreement with WMBIO to apply its proprietary CIS display technology to certain WMBIO’s lead candidates in cancer and other indications. WMBIO was span out in 2016 from the Asan Medical Center, the largest Korean hospital, and has developed 9 drugs for different indications including solid tumours.

MitoRx, MedCity company of the month. Based in Oxford and Exeter, the company was founded in 2021 by Dr Jon Rees (CEO, Co-Founder), Dr Norman Law (CTO, Head of IP, Co-Founder) and Prof Matt Whiteman (CSO, Inventor, Co-Founder). MitoRX secured an undisclosed amount of seed funding last April in a round led by UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund and seconded by Wren Capital, Longevitytech.fund, the Fink Family Office, the Science Angel Syndicate Network, Oxford Technology Management, and several angel investors. The company has recently been granted IP for their innovation. They plan to start pre-clinical trials later this year and in-human trials for muscular dystrophy in 2026. In short, MitoRx is developing MTRX-Myo and MTRX-Neuro, daily oral medication aiming to reset the mitochondria’s energy state, thus halting disease progression. I have been long-term interested in mitochondrial disease, and it is fantastic to see some actual progress in the field.

Fierce Biotech is seeking for nominations to the most innovative private biotechs. Last year, only one company from the British biotech ecosystem made it into the list, Mestag Therapeutics. Mestag is a Cambridge-based company targeting fibroblasts to treat cancer and inflammatory disease. You can send your nominations here until 15 July.

Building One at Oxford Technology Park has now been unveiled. The three-storey lab-enabled facility has 34,125 sq ft, available to let in suits from 4,140 sq.ft for office, laboratory and R&D use. Oxford Technology Park is a major new science and technology area and over 200,000 sq ft of space will become available over the next 12 months.

We Are Pioneer Group is looking to accelerate its incubator program across the UK. The company is form by BioCity, Knowledge Factory and Trinity Investment Management and as a 2.6 million sq ft property portfolio expanding various locations within the UK.

Antibody Analytics has inaugurated their Discovery Centre in Motherwell, Scotland. Antibody Analytics are specialists in primary cell method development and analysis. The company relocation will allow for introduction of a new services portfolio and support for their global customer base. The facility inauguration was led by Ivan McKee, Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise.

Mogrify is hiring for a number of roles. Based in Cambridge, the biotech startup aims to pioneer a new class of in vivo reprogramming therapies to treat degenerative disease.

ANGLE PLC (AIM:AGL OTCQX:ANPCY) has obtained US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) De Novo product clearance for its Parsortix liquid biopsy system in metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients. This is the first ever FDA product clearance to harvest cancer cells from patients’s blood samples for further analysis. The authorisation allows for non-invasive biopsies and subsequent analysing of intact living cancer cells. According to the company press release “ANGLE is not aware of any competitors even having started a similar FDA product clearance process”. Shares rose by 57% after the approval. The liquid biopsy market is expected to grow from $8 billion to more than $26 billion (2030). Remarkable approvals in the liquid biopsy space are the CellSearch CTC system (2013) and the diagnostics technologies from Rocheand Grail, which was acquired by Illumina ($8 billion, 2021).

Only a few days after England’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence(NICE) signed off on Sanofi and Regeneron’s Libtayo for the tough-to-treat skin cancer, Sanofi granted Regeneron worldwide exclusive license right to Libtayo. For patients in UK, it means those with metastatic or locally advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) not eligible for surgery/radiation will now have Libtayo as a fully-funded treatment option. CSCC is the 2nd most common skin cancer in the UK and represents 23% of all non-melanoma cancers. For Regeneron, they have agreed to upfront payments of $900 million to Sanofi in exchange for the rights, 11% royalty of worldwide net sales, and $100 million regulatory milestone payment upon first approval by either the FDA or European Commission of Libtayo in combination with chemotherapy for first-line treatment of certain patients with any type of epithelial lung cancer other than small cell lung cancer.

GSK has finally launched Haleon, the independent company emerged from the GSK Consumer Healthcare division. Brian McNamara has been named CEO and listing is expected at the end of July 2022.

More on GSK! GSK is betting big to acquire, as big as $3.3 billion, to acquire Affinivax, thus challenging Pfizer’s blockbuster Prevnar. The buyout will give GSK control over a 24-valent pneumococal vaccine candidate that Affinvax will progress into Phase 3 in adults and Phase 1/2 by the end of this year. Why the bet? GSK developed their own pneumococcal vaccine, Synflorix. However, sales have not matched expectations: Synflorix reached $450 million sales in 2021, whereas Pfizer’s Prevnar made over $5 billion. Approval of Merck’s Vaxneuvance has intensified competition.

Blackstone is in the process of closing a $5 billion deal to buy the drug-research services firm Advarra from Genstar Capital. Advarra collaborates in the process of getting drugs into market by reviewing clinical data from trials and ensuring compliance with regulatory processes. It is the biggest institutional review board (IBR), which are designated under FDA rules to review. No further details have been disclosed.

Family-friendly quiz for the Jubilee post-lunch conversation: What are the top 10 drugsby 2021 sales? 1) Comirnaty(Pfizer/BioNTech, $39.8 billion); 2) Humira (AbbVie, $20.7 billion); 3) Spikevax (Moderna, $17.7 billion); 4) Keytruda (Merck &Co., $17.2 billion); 5) Eliquis (Bristol Myers Squibb/Pfizer, $16.7 billion); 6) Revlimid (Bristol Myers Squibb, $12.8 billion); 7) Imbruvica (AbbVie/J&J, $9.8 billion); 8) Stelara (J&J, $9.1 billion); 9) Eylea(Regeneron Pharmaceuticals/Bayer, $8.9 billion); and 10) Biktarvy (Gilead Sciences, $8.6 billion).

CFGI, a Carlyle&CVC portfolio company, has written a very thorough guide to bringing UK biotechs into US public markets.

Hear This Idea has interviewed Gillian Hadfield, Director of the Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, and Professor of Law and Strategic Management at the University of Toronto. The discussion is interesting, and they address topics such as the case for regulatory markets in governing artificial intelligence, and silly rules or seemingly arbitrary norms that are actually really important to create societal infrastructure.

If you are new to the biotech ecosystem or simply are experiencing a sudden yet burning interest on patents, you may want to read this comment from Fiona Law, patent attorney at Potter Clarkson: What UK startups need to know about patents.

Last week we talked about the coming boom in cultured meat and engineered crops. The Guardian has written a nice piece on the world’s largest bioreactor that is going to be built in the US.

Curious about what the European Investment Fund (EIF) invested on by end-2021?