Busy week at the Funds side of things. Hoxton Ventures has raised $215 million fund, Catalio Capital Management is coming to London (and so is Coatue), and Sequoia has launched seed-stage accelerator program in Europe. We now know which startups have been selected for Illumina Accelerator, seven from US, one from Cambridge (UK), and one from India. At-home rapid blood testing keeps being the holy grail in diagnostics and Olser Diagnostics has emerged from stealth mode to take the challenge and is looking to raise $100 milion series C. Feels like Theranos? Not really. Ask David Berry. Meanwhile, FDA has approved AstraZeneca’s Lynparza thus meeting $175 million milestone. This week: Kistuné sound. Let’s dive in!

Oxford-spinout Olser Diagnostics emerged from stealth mode and is looking to raise $100 million series C. Olser aims to succeed at everything Theranos failed and it is on the right track. The at-home blood testing startup appointed Chris Smith (CEO at Nasdaq-listed Ortho Clinical Diagnostics) as Chair of the Board and David Berry (General Partner at Flagship Pioneering) as non-executive director. Current investors are Oxford Science Enterprises and Braavos Capital, as well as business leaders such as Charles Dunstone, Dermont Desmond, and Michael Spencer.

SpectrumX is about to debut on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) aiming for £50 million IPO. The debut is due end of Spring 2022. The company is leader in patented formulations of Hypochlorus Acid (HOCl), one of the most potent biocides known to humankind.

UK-based Geneflow secured €3.4 million non-dilutive longevity research grant from the regional government of Wallonia (Belgium). The grant will cover 2 years of pre-clinical R&D for gene therapy for the treatment of Werner Syndrome (adult progeria). Geneflow became Europe’s first publicly traded (LSE) longevity biotech in January 2022.

Vira Health raised $12 million series A. The round was led by Octopus Ventures and Optum Ventures, and seconded by MMC Ventures, Amino Collective, LocalGlobe, and other angel investors. The startup focuses in digital therapeutics for women going through menopause.

And yet another US biotech investment firm opening a London office. Catalio Capital Management is opening an office in the famous Baker Street. The VC firm is raising its third fund ($241 million) and 20% will be invested in European biotech startups. Catalio invested in Recursion Therapeutics and Thrive Earlier Detection. According to George Petrocheilos (co-founder of Catalio), US valuations are too high and unsustainable which has encouraged investors to focus on European markets.

Hoxton Ventures closed oversubscribed $215 million fund to enable European startups in their US expansion. The fund invest across all sectors from Deep Tech to Consumer, but also biotech (BaseImmune, FabricNano, LiliumX, Ochre Bio, and Peptone, (Generative AI platform for protein design), among others.

Illumina Accelerator announced 4th global funding cycle. The selected startups are: 4SR biosciences (multiplexed seqeuncing from small RNA, US); B4X Therapeutics (brain-focus therapeutics & diagnostics utilising multi-omic big data, US); Cache DNA (nucleic acid software and storage company, US); CRISP-HR Therapeutics (proprietary, next-generation CRISPR platform, US); NonExomics (proteogenomics and AI-driven therapeutics company aiming to mine novel drug targets, UK); Purpose Health (mental wellness company that incorporates microbiome and other physiological data, US); and ReThink Bio (synthetic biology startup harnessing microalgae as food solution, India).

The o2h Human Health KI Enterprise Investment Scheme Fund is open for subscription. Deadline April, 5th.

Sequoia launched seed-stage accelerator program in Europe. The expect to select 15 companies which will receive $1 million investment from the US VC giant. The focus of this first cohort will be SaaS and fintech but ‘all walks of life are encourage to participate’.

Oppilotech entered drug discover partnership with Evariste Technologies to develop antibacterial programme using prorietary machine learning platform. The potentially antibacterial compounds identified by Evariste will be further evaluated by Oppilotech computational models of bacteria and in house microbiology expertise.

Janssen teamed up again with Welsh-based biotech company Midatech Pharma which utilises 3D printing to better encapsulate drugs. Not much has been disclosed but their proprietary technology would allow for pH regulation within encapsulation.

Edinburgh-based biotech firm Roslin Technologies announced extension of their proprietary stem-cell technology to produce farm animals-free dog food. The expansion will be fuelled by Agronomics (LSE: ANIC), a leading cellular agriculture investment fund.

U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) puts on hold Exact Therapeutics’ clinical trial for solid tumors. MHRA asked for extra information on their proprietary ultrasound system used to activate the therapy.

Exscientia and University of Oxford Target Discovery Institute launched Xcellomics. The program will source functional assays from the global academic community to identify novel targets for orphan diseases and unmet medical needs. The aim is to fuel early-stage drug discovery research.

Cambridge-based startup Congenica has been selected to provide tertiary analysis for whole genome sequencing servicesfor the Hong Kong Genome Project, the first large-scale genome sequencing initiative in Hong Kong.

ImmTune Therapies, 2021 Astellas Future Innovator Prize at We are Pioneer Group. The company is developing in vivo cell and gene therapies with a focus in autoimmune diseases, using its proprietary nanoparticle-based platform. No further details have been disclosed.

AstraZeneca launched R&D Postdoctoral Challenge. The program will enable postdocs or M.D/Ph.D students in their final year to receive funding and pursue their own ideas. Applications close on May 26, and applicants from Africa and United Arab Emirates are encouraged to apply.

Aderestia Therapeutics appointed Robert Johnson as Chief Executive Officer. Johnson was previously co-founder and Chief Business Officer of Affinia Therapeutics (a gene therapy company engineering next-generation AAV capsids), which eventually entered $1.6 billion strategic partnership with Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

Clinical stage oncology drug company Avacta appointed Christina Coughlin, M.D., Ph.D., as Non-executive Director to the Board. Dr. Coughlin is CEO of Cytoimmune Therapeutics, former CMO to Rubius Therapeutics and Oncology Asset Team Leader at Pfizer.

Cambridge-based startup Healx appointed Nathan Brown as Director of Digital Chemistry. Brown, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, joins from leading the Chemoinformatics team at BenevolentAI.

Aderestia Therapeutics is recruiting senior positions. bit.bio is hiring for a range of roles. Transine Therapeutics is hiring RNA Senior Scientists.

FDA recommends at least 15 years of follow-up after clinical trials for genome editing products. Recommendation has been publish after two major updates in the field: recent Intellia success and Allogene clinical hold suggesting potential risks (which ended up not being related to neither Manufacturing process nor TALEN Gene Editing).

FDA approved AstraZeneca’s Lynparza (olaparib) to treat high risk early breast cancer. The approval means earnings of $175 million for AstraZeneca. The IP behind the blockbuster originates from former Cambridge startup KuDOS led by Prof. Steve Jackson’s.

Takeda’s Exkivity secures MHRA approval in UK, thus running ahead of its competitor J&J’s Rybrevant. These drugs are designed to treat a non-small cell lung cancer, in particular, those with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 20 insertion mutations after chemotherapy and which show disease progression. In contrast, J&J got ahead Takeda in US last year.

Pursuing off-the-shelf CAR-T therapies. An interview with Andre Choulika, CEO of Cellectis.

Sofinnova, the secrets to 50 years of success in biotech investment.

Europe struggles to commercialise its biotech expertise. A few insights on why.

A study led by Dr. Martin Welsh at the University of Cambridge explains why respiratory infections often persist in people with lung diseases: The effectiveness of the antibiotics against its own target decreases significantly when different bacteria are present.