A late for the tea edition of the newsletter. The patent cliff, alike the heatwave, is coming and companies are making provisions to boost their pipelines with new candidates. Last week, AstraZeneca announced acquisition of TeneoTwo for $1.3 billion. There is a TeneoOne and a TeneoBio. Also a TeneoTen. Although not all Teneos are created equal, they all have big names around, see AbbVie, Amgen and now AstraZeneca. USB Asset Management and the Reef Group have set out plans to build a £900 million life science cluster in Stevenage, where GSK Global R&D headquarters live. By the way, they have just completed the acquisition of Sierra Oncology for £1.6 billion. And indeed, Merck is also out for shopping. Topic Biosciences has raised $35 million bridge round and the Head of Computational Research & AI at Milner Therapeutics Institute has launched a new venture, which has just emerged from stealth. Act Venture Capital has raised a new fund and so is Time Boost Capital, now backed by Illumina. Great news from Nuclera as they raise an extended series B. Are we really just around the corner for protein printing? A few weeks ago we read Peter Kolchinskywas ready for the fight. This week, Bruce Booth is a little more optimistic and shows some data for hope. The other patent cliff: only one non-US academic centre in the top 20 most active institutions in producing biotech patents. Let’s dive in!

Tropic Biosciences has raised $35 million bridge round. The round was led by Blue Horizon and participated by ADQ, Bloom8, Skyviews Life Science, Sucden Ventures, and Tekfen Ventures. The company raised $28.5 million series B in June 2020 (led by Temasek). Tropic Biosciences is leveraging gene-editing technology to enhance cultivation efficiencies, particularly banana, coffee and rice, to improve consumer health and environmental practices. They focus on tropical regions, as these constitute some of the largest agricultural producers in the world. The proceedings of the round will be used to reach the go-to-market stage.

Cambridge-based Nuclera has raised additional $15.5 million series B, now totalling $58 million. The round was led by Verve Ventures and Jonathan Milner. The company has developed a proprietary desktop bioprinter technology, which they apply to their eProtein synthesis, eDNA synthesis and eDrop digital microfluidics. Nuclera primarily focuses on accelerating protein expression workflows and aims to produce protein in just 24 hours. The proceedings of the round will help to scale operations from research and development to commercial scale. According to company materials, eProtein allows to screen up to 24 DNA constructs at once. It uses a coupled transcription/translation system that mimics the natural components. The device then reports the soluble yield for each construct, and the protein of choice can be expressed (100 µg of protein/cartridge).

University of Cambridge spinout CardiaTec Biosciences has emerged from stealth and raised £1.4 pre-seed funding. The round was led by Laidlaw Scholars Ventures (LSV) and APEX Ventures and participated by Crista Galli Ventures, o2h ventures and Cambridge Enterprise. Remarkably, CardiaTec constitutes LSV’s first investment as it recently became the investment arm of the Laidlaw Foundation. The startup is developing a target discovery platform for cardiovascular disease that uses artificial intelligence to analyse large datasets (i.e. genomics, microbiomics and epigenomics). CardiaTech is founded by Raphael Peralta (CEO), Thelma Zablocki (COO), and Namshik Han (CTO, Head of Computational Research & AI at Milner Therapeutics Institute in University of Cambridge)

Imperial College London spinout Signatur Biosciences is now backed by Y Combinator (YC S22). The company was co-founded by Celestin de Wergifosse (CEO), John Goertz (CSO), and Professor Molly Stevens, FRENG FRS (Non-Executive Director). Signatur is a B2B molecular diagnostic company. They have developed a technology called PCRchitecture, which leverages the molecular machinery of PCR to condense all the work of detecting and interpreting a panel of RNA biomarkers into a single test. PCRchitecture integrates with existing workflows in diagnostics and research.

London-based WeWALK has been awarded £1.7 million funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) as part of the UKRI’s Healthy Ageing Challenge. The startup is developing a computer-aided cane that uses ultrasonic sensors to allow visually impaired people navigating complex landscapes. WeWALK has partnered with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and the Imperial College London and will utilise the proceedings of the grant to make their tech more accessible.

Edinburgh-based PhysioMedics has raised £1.5 million of equity and grant funding. The round was participated by the business angel investment syndicate Archangels, Scottish Enterprise and Innovate UK. The startup will use the funds to expand into Europe and Indian markets and move from product development to commercial growth. PhysioMedics is developing a triage platform currently focused on musculoskeletal disorders. The platform has already been clinically validated and matches patients with treatments using a 10-minute online questionnaire.

Cambridge-based medtech startup 52 North Health and Dr Pietro Sormanni, group leader at the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, have been awarded £200,000 from the Innovate UK’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programme. The joint grant will focus on developing a low-cost rapid diagnostic test for novel disease indications. The project leverages technology from both partners. Dr Sormanni’s research focuses on antibodies in biomedical research and diagnostics, whereas 52 North Health is developing NeutroCheck, a device to rapidly identify chemotherapy patients at risk of sepsis.

NATO has launched its Innovation Fund, the world’s first multi-sovereign venture capital fund. The fund will invest €1 billion in a 15-year window in early-stage startups and other venture capital funds focused on artificial intelligence, biotech and human health, novel materials, big-data processing, quantum-enabled technologies, autonomy, energy, and space. The Fund will complement NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA).

Act Venture Capital has raised £120 million in the first close of its ACT VI Fund and has received investment from the European Investment Fund, Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and Enterprise Ireland. The Fund will invest up to £10 million into 35 companies focused on health, artificial intelligence/machine learning, enterprise, deeptech, energy and climate from UK, Ireland and the rest of Europe.

UK Research and Innovation has announced £100 million funding for Future Leaders Fellowships. The funding allows universities and businesses to develop their early career researchers and attract new talent, including from overseas. The fellowship supports early career researchers to establish or transition to independence or those looking into developing research with commercial setting. There is no minimum or maximum award value, and the project can last for up to 4 years with option to renew for further 3 years.

Time Boost Capital has launched a £30 million genomics venture fund dedicated to provide matching funding to startups graduating from Illumina Accelerator Cambridge. The fund is backed by a select group of US and European investors, including £10 million from cornerstone investor LifeArc, Illumina, and Illumina Ventures. Since opening in July 2020, Illumina Accelerator has launched 13 startups leveraging genomics in the field of diagnostics, synthetic biology, agriculture and therapeutics. Time Boost Capital will provide matching founding to the graduating startups that manage to secure between £500,000 and £4 million from qualified investors within 18 months of acceptance.

Innovate UK has launched Fast Start, a £30 million brand new program of £50,000 grants for cutting-edge ideas in the following areas: bioinformatics and genomics, engineering biology, artificial intelligence and digital and advanced computing, electronics, photonics and quantum, energy and environment technologies, robotics and smart machine. Innovation grants will only be offered to businesses that have not previously received Innovate UK funding.

Mogrify and Astellas Pharma have entered a collaboration agreement on in vivo regenerative medicine approaches to tackle sensorial hearing loss. The collaboration aims to identify novel combinations of transcription factors involved in cell differentiation to generate new cochlear hair cells. Astellas Gene Therapy, as part of Astellas Pharma, will cover the research costs and will contribute its expertise in adeno-associated virus based genetic medicine whereas Mogrify will leverage their proprietary cellular reprogramming platform and bioinformatic expertise. Financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT) has announced LG Chem Life Sciences (LG Chem), as part of the ongoing collaboration, has exercised its renewal option triggering a $2 million license renewal fee payment . LG Chem has exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialise Avacta’s Affimer PD-L1 inhibitor with Affimer XT serum half-life extension (PD-L1/XT) for a range of indications. The aim is commencing pre-clinical studies and file for Investigational New Drug. This would represent a milestone for Avacta’s technology as this would be the first-in-human clinical trials of their proprietary Affimer platform.

Yet another partnership in the liquid biopsy space! Belfast-based Sonrai Analytics has partnered with California-based IV BioHoldings (IVBH) to accelerate early detection of diseases with poor prognosis. The collaboration entails Sonrai’s development of novel algorithms applied to identify, validate and productise novel biomarkers for the effective early detection of a range of diseases, thus supporting IVBH’s clinical pipeline and commercial portfolio (LiquidLung, HepGene and Mammogen). The collaboration agreement comes a week after Sonrai announced they had raised a £2.175 million extended seed round to accelerate the global adoption of its technology.

USB Asset Management, Reef Group and other unnamed investors have set out plans to invest up to £900 million to create a life science cluster in Stevenage. The cluster will have 1.4 million sq ft of laboratory and offices, up to 5,000 skilled jobs and 33 acres of land. The site is expecting to be partially operating in 2025. The Stevenage campus is already one of the lagest biotech hubs, including the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult manufacturing centre, the Stevenage Bioscience Catalys with more than 40 life science startups and the GSK’s Global R&D centre.

Co-inventor of antibody phage display and founder of Cambridge Antibody Technology, Dr John McCafferty has launched a new research group in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. The group is funded by the Wellcome Trust Anti-Venom Initiative and aims to apply the advances in recombinant antibody technology to snakebite envenomation. The group is recruiting a Research Associate and a Senior Research Associate. Details for application can be found here.

Dundee-based Ubiquigent has appointed Professor Helen Walden and Professor John Davis to the Scientific Advisory Board. Helen Walden is Professor of Structural Biology at the University of Glasgow and Director of the Institute of Molecular Cell and Systems Biology. John Davis is Chief Scientific Officer for the Centre for Medicines Discovery at the University of Oxford and Director of Business Development for the Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK) Drug Discovery Alliance.

Transine Therapeutics has appointed Andy Billinton, PhD as Chief Scientific Officer. Dr Billinton led the Neuroscience Discovery Group at MedImmune/AstraZeneca, and worked at GSK targeting neurological and pain indications from idea through to Phase 2. He joins from NodThera, where he led the team bringing into clinical trial various candidates for innate immunity-related disorders such as neuroinflammation.

LifeArc and the Milner Therapeutics Institute have expanded their collaboration into a five-year strategic partnership. So far, the partnership has identified new disease signatures for six different cancer types, repositioned an existing LifeArc target as a potential therapeutic for cancer, and created a bespoke AI platform, led by Dr Namshik Han.

Merck & Co is in talks to acquire SeaGen for $40 million. The Pharma company has offered $200 per share, a 15% premium to last Wednesday close. The acquisition fits into the recent wave or M&A processes, as the big patent cliff is approaching. As it is for Merck, blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda will lose patent protection at the end of the decade. Seagen has 4 oncology approved treatments and a dozen of other candidates in trials. In 2022 (Q1), Seagen total net product sales rose 27% to $383 million and it forecasts full-year revenue of about $1.7 billion. Talks between Merck and SeaGen are not new, as in 2020 the entered a collaboration agreement to co-develop an antibody-based drug for breast cancer and other solid tumours and to license a drug for cancers over-expressing HER2. SeaGen currently partners with Sanofi, Takeda and Bristol Myers Squibb, among others.

AstraZeneca (AZN:LON) has agreed to acquire the privately held TeneoTwo for $1.3 billion. AstraZeneca will pay $100 million in cash up front and TeneoTwo’s shareholders, including Lightspeed Venture Partners and SR One, could receive further $805 million for development milestones and additional $360 million for commercial milestones. The acquisition will allow the big pharma to get hold of TNB-486, T-cell engager, CD3/CD19 bispecific antibody drug that facilitates drawing the immune cells to the tumours. TNB-486 is currently in Phase 1 testing in relapsed and refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Treatments from Roche, AbbVie/Genmab, and J&J are in advanced stages of clinical testing. Wondering why the TeneoTwo name? Yes, indeed, the reason is there was a TeneoOne, and even a TeneoBio, but these were respectively acquired by AbbVie and Amgen respectively. Worry not, there is also a TeneoFour and TeneoTen, all owned by Ancora Biotech.

GSK plc (LSE/NYSE: GSK) has announced it has completed the acquisition of Sierra Oncology, a California-based biopharmaceutical company focused on targeted therapies for the treatment of rare forms of cancer. The acquisition includes momelotinib, a late-stage potential new medicine with a unique dual mechanism of action that may address the critical unmet medical needs of myelofibrosis patients with anaemia. The financials: GSK acquired all outstanding shares of Sierra Oncology for $55/share in cash, total equity value of £1.6 billion, representing a 39% premium to closing stock price on 12 April 2022 and a volume-weighted average price (VWAP) over the last 30 trading days.

The number of worldwide biotech patents issued shrank in 2021 for the first time since 2011. Patents should not be measured by number but by impact. Yet, in the top 20 academic centres there is only one non-US institution, the University of Tokio. Among the top 10 most active non-US universities, only one UK-based, University of Oxford, one in France and two in Belgium.

Paul Stoffels has a plan. He set a 5-year window to reorient Galapagos focus, and although he has only been in the top seat for 3 months, he has not wasted time.

The Department of Trade and the BioIndustry Association have published report on the UK Genomics landscape.

Companies with strong science, led by solid teams, will continue to get financed. This is what Bruce Booth, Partner at the US-based Atlas Ventures, believes based on a few pieces of data: 2022 is off to the fastest start for private financings than every year except 2021. Also, over $6 billion has been invested in 2022 (2Q), well short of 2021 (2Q) and nearly as much as 2020 (2Q), but far more than 2Q in all prior years. Is this a rush to finalise the deals before things go completely to the dogs?

UK is well on track to meet NHS goal of diagnosing 75% of all cancers at an early stage by 2028. Or so says the former Chief Executive Officer of Cancer Research UK and Head of Innovation for J&J, Sir Harpal Kumar, now President of GRAIL Europe.