15th edition and counting…Thank you all for your interest and messages saying you find Cambridge Biocapital useful and informative. Time flies here but also for Syncona. The life sciences fund has announced results marking a decade since its foundation. Despite of the biotech turmoil, upwards and onwards, they stay profitable. What have they been investing on? Exciting findings from the Cancer Research UK-funded TRACERx study in the gamma delta T cells front.Two seed rounds this week and a series C. Manchester has now its very own Angel. Also, friends, it is no secret that in the last six months, three of Europe’s largest life sciences venture firms (LSP, Abingworth and Sofinnova Partners) have either been acquired by or sold a minority stake to private equity firms. Last, not all Artificial Intelligences are created equal so it is about time to familiarise ourselves with Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Burning curiosity about the implications of all these? Let’s dive in!

p.s: Some of you have message me saying you did not get some of the previous editions. It turned out they were hiding in the junk/promotions folder, as email clients (Gmail, Outlook) send newsletters there almost systematically by default. It would be great I you could move Cambridge Biocapital to your inbox folder so we help the algorithm to do a better job.

Relation Therapeutics has raised $25 million seed funding. The round was led by DVCV and Magnetic Ventures, with participation from Khosla Ventures, OMERS Ventures, Firstminute Capital, Peer Schatz (former CEO of Qiagen), Johnatan Millner (founder of Abcam) and Mark Stevenson (former COO of ThermoFisher). Relation Therapeutics is truly pioneering the use of active-graph machine learning (ML) in combination with single-cell analysis and clinical analysis. this allows to understand and contextualise a huge number of combinatorial functional relationships between genes, proteins and potential drugs. Relation is one of the four startups with access to the NVIDIA Cambridge-1 GPU supercomputer (p.s. the others are Alchemab, InstaDeep and Peptone). Their drug discovery process starts from working with cells provided by proprietary biobanks, followed by generation of genomic data that is fed into the ML system. Then, their platform requests specific experiments to improve datasets and thus predictive ability. The aim is to better map the cause of the disease and reveal causal relationships in diseases. Relation initial focus are bone diseases, as there is a good pre-existing cellular representation and yet represent an unmet medical need.

Epoch Biodesign has emerged from stealth and raised $11M seed round led by Lowercarbon Capital alongside BoxGroup, Amadeus Capital Partners, The Venture Collective, VOYAGERS.io, Zero Carbon Capital, MCJ Collective, among others. The company was founded by Jacob Nathan (CEO) and Prof. Douglas Kell, expert in systems biology. Now, after 3 years of research and development, Epoch Biodesign has shared its double mission in the field of synthetic biology. First, they aim to engineer enzymes that break down non-recyclable plastics, such multi-laminate packaging or those used in agriculture and manufacturing, in the quickest and most economical way possible. Second, Epoch plans to utilise the byproducts from the reaction to create new materials (cleaning products, fertilisers, etc.).

London-based Proximie has raised $80 million series C in a round led by Advent Life Sciences. The round was participated by Emerson Collective, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, British Patient Capital, Mubadala, and the Minderoo Foundation. Existing investors F-Prime Capital, Eight Roads, Questa Capital, Global Ventures, and Maverick Ventures also participated in the round. The proceedings will be used to accelerate the development and scale Proximi’s Operating System for the Operating Room, a centralised platform delivering connected surgical care. Proximie has supported over 13,000 surgeries over 100 countries. Hospital leveraging this technology have access to preoperative data, real time collaborative tools, postoperative content management tools, and can connect operating rooms globally. This enables a better informed patient treatment and care, as well as supports surgeons training.

CatSci, a spin out from AstraZeneca’s Catalyst Screening Facility, has secured investment from KeenSight Capital, one of the leading European Growth Buyout firms. CatSci is a contract research organisation supporting pharmaceutical companies to develop sustainable drug manufacturing processes. CatSci was founded in 2010 and is led by Dr Ross Burn(CEO) and Dr Simon Tyler (COO). Currently, it has 6 operational laboratories across the UK. The proceedings will support CatSci’s next stages of growth, including site expansion, development of GMP capabilities and expansion of oligonucleotide services.

University of Oxford-spinout Orbit Discovery has been awarded £472,000 Smart Grant by Innovate UK. The proceedings of the grant will be used to implement droplet-based microfluidics for cell-based functional screening, as well as expanding the capabilities of its proprietary peptide display platform. Orbit Discovery is a functional screening service company founded by Professor Graham Ogg and Professor Terry Rabbitts

A study shows the worldwide biotech sector raised $16 billion in 2020 and $34 billion in 2021. However, we may need a well-loaded Irish coffee to be able to look at the 2022 numbers when they come… The study outlines the six biotech platforms attracting the most funding form 2019 to 2021: 1) Cell therapy (innate immune cells, precision control of cell therapy leveraging synthetic biology (e.g. synthetic gene circuits), and in vivo cell therapy); 2) Next generation gene therapies (RNA-based modalities and editing, novel nucleases and non-nuclease editing and modulation strategies); 3) Precision medicine for early diagnostics (early disease detection, biomarker discovery and precision population health); 4) Machine learning-driven drug discovery (target identification, rational drug design and lead validation/optimisation); 5) Strategies for undruggable targets (new small-molecule binding sites, protein degradation, and novel disease targets); and 6) Novel drug delivery methods (improved capsides, biological vehicles (e.g. exosomes) and enhanced nanoparticles).

Syncona has announced results for the year ended 31 March 2022, marking a decade since its foundation. Syncona strategy focuses on found, build and fund exceptional science across development stage and therapeutic areas. Their companies have raised $712.2 million across seven financings during the financial year, of which $126.4 million have been committed by Syncona. Despite the rather challenging circumstances in biotech markets and the general economic downturn, Syncona keeps delivering high value. Their life science portfolio is valued at £524.9 million (31 March 2021: £722.1 million), thus delivering a 0.8 per cent return (31 March 2021: 11.8 per cent return). The fund has also executed their largest transaction to date, the sale of Gyroscope to Novartis for up to $1.5 billion including milestones. Current portfolio includes 11 companies in the cell therapy (Autolus, Achiles Therapeutics, Quell Therapeutics, Resolution Therapeutics, Neogene Therapeutics and CladeTherapeutics), gene therapy (Freeline Therapeutics, SwanBioTherapeutics, Purespring Therapeutics), biologics (Anaveon), and small molecules (OMass Therapeutics), as well as 11 ongoing clinical trials.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has announced a £481 million investment for the UK’s world-class research and innovation infrastructure over the next 3 years. These include 23 major infrastructure projects and 9 scoping studies to maintain UK leading position in life sciences and technology. The major projects include £81.5 million upgrading for the Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron; £37 million for the UKRI Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM), a “flying laboratory” that enables tracking pollution and climate change; and a new £24 million national innovation infrastructure providing cutting edge resources for creative industries (CoSTAR), among others. The lifetime UKRI Infrastructure Fundinvestment in this portfolio is estimated to be £1.6 billion.

The investment bank GP Bullhound and the commercial property company Bruntwood have partnered to form Manchester Angel, an angel investment network for the regional life science and tech startups. They have partnered with specialised investors such Praetura Ventures, Northern Gritstone, Octopus Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank and The University of Manchester’s Innovation Factory. No further details have been disclosed yet.

LifeArc has committed £30 million over the next 5 years to the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI). The funding will be used to developing new diagnostic tests and devices to identify a range of neurodegenerative diseases leading to dementia, as well as accelerate the discovery of novel treatments. The partnership will allow UK DRI accessing LifeArc diagnostic platform and expertise in translational research and therapeutics.

Third Rock Ventures has announced the closing of Third Rock Ventures Fund VI, raising $1.1 billion. Partners for the Fund VI are Abbie Celniker, Ph.D., Neil Exter, Kevin Gillis, Reid Huber, Ph.D., David Kaufman, M.D., Ph.D., Cary Pfeffer, M.D., Robert Tepper, M.D., Ph.D., and Jeffrey Tong, Ph.D. To date, Third Rock has raised $3.8 billion, invested in 60 companies and brought 18 products to market for cancer, cardiovascular diseases and rare genetic diseases among others. Fund VI will provide series A and follow-on series through the supported companies lifecycle.

γδ T cells, the cells that keep on giving. As part of the Cancer Research UK-funded TRACERx study, researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, King’s College Londonand UCL have found that higher levels of Vδ1 cells, a subtype of γδ T cells, are linked to greater chance of remaining cancer-free after surgery for non-small cell lung cancer. Whereas Vδ1 T cells are more prevalent in the lungs, Vδ2 T cells are more abundant in the blood, but only Vδ1 T cells are a good indicator of survival. This may explain why previous clinical trials using γδ T cells for lung cancer have been unsuccessful as they have used cells from the Vδ2 subset.

Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge has launched a program to identify and treat Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH). The program is part of the Reversible Dementia (REVERT) project, a cross-border collaboration between the UK and France, led by the University of Cambridge. NPH is caused by an abnormal build-up of fluid in the brain, leading to memory loss, poor balance and bladder issues. It affects people over 65 and is frequently mistaken for various kinds of dementia, although it is reversible with surgery.

Stratified-based Monument Therapeutics has announced the start of its first clinical study for MT1980, a compound indicated for neuroinflammation. MT1980 has been developed using technology licensed from TRx Biosciences to improve formulation and thus absorption, pharmacokinetics and blood brain barrier penetration.

London-based Relation Therapeutics has appointed Dr David Roblin as CEO and DrLindsay Edwards as CTO. Dr David Roblin was the Senior Vice President of European R&D at Pfizer, and former Chair of Scientific Translation at the Francis Crick Institute. He is also Non-Executive Director of Sosei Heptares and Non-Executive Chair of Centauri Therapeutics. Dr Lindsay Edwards was Vice President and Head of Artificial Intelligence for Respiratory and Immunology at AstraZeneca and Vice President and Head of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning for the UK and Europe as GSK.

Kristian Shearsby has joined law firm Stephenson Harwood LLP as partner in its London office. Shearsby joins from Mills & Reeve, where he was head of London corporate. He specialises in life science and technology and advises from early stage to publicly traded companies, VC investments and corporate finances.

Prof Claire Thompson has been recognised as one of the Top 10 Leaders in the field of small molecules on the 2022 Medicine Maker Power List. Prof Thompson is CEO and founder of Agility Life Sciences and has previously been awarded the One Nucleus “Life Sciences Inspiration of the Year Award” as well as achieving recognition from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

Cambridge Epigenetix has appointed Peter J. Fromen as CEO. Mr Fromen was CCO at PacBio (NASDAQ: PACB), and prior to that has held numerous senior roles at Illumina.

RedX Pharma (AIM: REDX) and Jazz Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: JAZZ) have announced U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared the Investigational New Drug (IND)for JZP815, a pan-RAF inhibitor for the treatment of solid tumours with mutations in the MAPK pathway. The clearance allows Jazz to proceed with the Phase I clinical trial and has triggered a $5 million milestone payment from Jazz to RedX. JZP815 is the fifth compound discovered by RedX to enter the clinic.

Cambridge-based 4basebio (AIM: 4BB) has signed a collaboration agreement with University of Alabama and Tesside University to investigate a Neurofibromatosis Treatment (NF1). The universities has been awarded $1 million philanthropic funding from the US-based Gilbert Family Foundation. 4basebio will contribute to the design and development of a non-viral vector utilising Hermes™ and hpDNA™ (synthetic DNA), the company’s proprietary technology platforms. NF1 is a genetic condition caused by mutations in NF1 gene, which regulates the production of neurofibromin protein. The condition causes tumours anywhere in the nervous system and can include learning difficulties, skeletal malformations and sever pain.

Scancell Holdings (AIM: SCLP) has announced intention to develop its GlyMab antibodies into T cell redirecting bispecific antibodies and expects to take them into the clinic. The company will combine GlyMab antibodies with in-licensed Fc silencing technology from mAbsolve. GlyMabs target glycan motifs (rather than amino acid epitopes) that are associated with tumour malignancies.

Arecor Therapeutics (AIM: AREC) has entered a collaboration agreement with a top 5 global pharmaceutical company. Although not many details have been disclosed, Arecor will utilise their proprietary formulation platform (Arestat) to develop improved high concentration liquid formulations for the partnered Pharma, which will have the option to acquire the rights to the new proprietary formulations and associated IP.

The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has agreed to cover Amarin’s cholesterol drug Vascepa. The treatment can benefit round 425,000 people in the UK and Wales. Final guidance is expected to be published on July 13. Controversy, Amarin has announced a 65% cut of its US commercial staff (90% drop from pre-pandemic levels), and a 40% reduction in total employees. Their CFO has resigned. Amarin and NICE have agreed £144.21 per 120 soft capsules, although there is a generic version of Vascepa already available in US.

When we refer to AI, we normally mean narrow AI, like the one used for protein folding prediction. But that is not all. Elon Musk told the world he expects artificial general intelligence (AGI) to be ready by 2029. Gary Marcus has a few queries to this. The article is short, but it has a lot to be debriefed. Now that you are on it, bonus article in Nature about ethical priorities for neurotechnologies and AI.

So, private equity firms are now interested in life sciences! Stephen Hansen has written a good article about this sudden interest.

Are SAFEs safe?

Deep dive into what the era of big biotech means for investors.

Evox Therapeutics has published a beginners guide to exosomes and its therapeutic potential.