Author: kirsty.lewis

One of our spin outs Rosa Biotech is featured in an online article in Medical Device Network.  Read all about it here: https://www.medicaldevice-network.com/features/biosensor-tech/

CytoSeek Ltd, a discovery-stage biotech company developing the next generation of cell therapies to treat cancer using its pioneering cell-membrane augmentation technology, announces today [20 Jan] the appointment of Dr Carolyn Porter as Chief Executive Officer and a Director of the company.

CytoSeek is a spin-out from the University of Bristol based on research led by Professor Adam Perriman, a Professor of Bioengineering in the School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. The Company’s technology enables the addition of new functionalities to cell therapies including tissue-specific targeting and enhanced cell survivability. CytoSeek is applying its technology to enable development of more effective cell therapies for the treatment of cancer.

Carolyn brings 20-years of leadership experience, including in the spin-out arena, having led the formation of 16 companies raising £52M cumulatively in seed financing while in a previous role at the University of Oxford. Carolyn has also held Board positions in several biotech companies. Most recently, Carolyn was Chief Business Officer of OxStem Ltd, a biotech developing therapies targeting stem cells, and has held senior Business Development roles in large pharma (Novartis) and biotech (Chiron) companies working on in/out licensing transactions, acquisitions and strategic alliances with deal values in excess of $1bn.

Dr Porter, said: “Cell Therapy is expected to be one of the next cornerstones of cancer treatments. Currently, challenges remain in bringing these therapies to cancer patients particularly those affected by solid tumours. CytoSeek’s technology aims to address several of these challenges such as improving the efficacy of these therapies in solid tumours. I am excited to be joining the CytoSeek team, to lead the company through its next phase of development and to join a thriving biotech community in Bristol.”

CytoSeek has undertaken initial studies to demonstrate enhancement of cell therapies not only for cancer but also for other potential indications including heart disease and osteoarthritis demonstrating the breadth of applications for its platform. The Company will be seeking commercialisation partnerships with cell therapy companies to bring next generation of advanced cell therapy products to the clinic and ultimately to patients.

Keith MacDonald, Chairman of CytoSeek, added: “We are delighted to welcome Carolyn to the CytoSeek team. Her experience of working with spin-out companies and her track record of executing partnership transactions will enable the company to build on its successful start.”

About CytoSeek

CytoSeek is a discovery stage biotech company established to develop next generation cell therapies using cellmembrane augmentation technology originating from Professor Adam Perriman’s group at Bristol University. The Company is based at Unit Dx in St Philips, Bristol and closed a £1.1M funding round in November 2019. Investors included local entrepreneurs, members of the Bristol Private Equity Club, the Venture Capital Fund UKI2S and the University of Bristol Enterprise Fund managed by Parkwalk Advisors.

Great news for one of our spin outs!  See link below:

London’s Violence Reduction Unit invests £1m in boosting doctors’ skills in identifying and supporting victims of domestic violence through the IRIS programme

The Award is the UK’s longest running and most prestigious prize for engineering innovation. It recognises outstanding engineering innovation combined with proven commercial success and tangible social benefit.

Winners receive a £50,000 cash prize, gold medal and national acclaim.

Applications are welcomed from right across the breadth of engineering from small and large companies, as well as newcomers and those well-established in their industries. We welcome applications that showcase the diversity of talent supporting UK engineering innovation.

The University of Bristol Enterprise Fund III (supported by the Research Commercialisation Team)  is almost fully committed within 9 months of launch. Companies funded to date are Inductosense https://www.inductosense.com/, Cytoseek https://www.cytoseek.uk/, Mogrify https://mogrify.co.uk/, Industrial Phycology https://i-phyc.com/ and LettUs Grow https://www.lettusgrow.com/ with a further three offers that should close by February 2020. The increased speed of investment (Fund I took almost 2 years) is indicative of the increasing number of good quality spin off and start up companies and interest in the Fund. The team are discussing raising Fund IV.

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/business/research-commercialisation/our-spin-out-companies/

See below links to read about two of our spin out companies, Cytoseek and Ceryx Medical:

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/november/cytoseek.html

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/december/artificial-neurons.html

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/november/bionic-pacemaker.html

 

IP Expo event at MoD Filton on Friday 6th September.  Jaci Barnett, Head of Research Commercialisation attended, alongside Evangelos, CEO at @comat_i, on our stand. Carolyn Jenkins and James Hamilton were busy off talking to the likes of DSTL, DASA, Ploughshare Innovations etc #Innovation, #defenceIP  

 

 

 

We are looking for our next cohort of promising leaders of growth-potential engineering and technology companies.

This six-month programme is designed to support you to develop the leadership skills needed to scale your business.

Applications close Monday 18th November 2019, 4pm.

What we offer:

• Grant of up to £10,000 to fund leadership training courses of your choice
• One-to-one personal leadership coaching
• Masterclasses and workshops delivered by senior business leaders
• Provision of an experienced business mentor
• Access to the Taylor Centre, our Central London office and meeting space
• Travel and accommodation expenses covered for all activities

What we’re looking for:

• Decision-makers (both engineers and non-engineers) in engineering and technology SMEs with an ambitious vision to grow
• Your company must have raised at least £500,000 equity investment and/or have a turnover of at least £200,000 in the previous 12 months
• Your company must be based in the UK to be eligible for this award – applicants from any nationality are eligible as long as you have the right to work in the UK
• We are committed to improving diversity and inclusion in engineering, and we especially welcome applications from those currently underrepresented within the sector.
• This programme is now open. If you are not ready to apply, we run the programme every six months.

Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide; it affects roughly 2% of all people over 40. Researchers at the University of Bristol are pioneering a new way of treating glaucoma using gene therapy.

The underlying causes are varied and no cure exists, but studies have shown that high pressure in the eye (intraocular pressure, or IOP) is a key feature, and deceasing this pressure can largely prevent progression and further visual loss by halting damage to the optic nerve. At present, there is no definitive treatment – and what treatments there are risk sudden loss of vision, or arduous lifelong repeated administration.

Thanks to the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute MRC Confidence in Concept scheme, Dr Colin Chu and Professor Andrew Dick at the School of Clinical Sciences, University of Bristol have developed a system which potentially halts the elevated IOP which causes so many problems with just one injection. The injection contains a viral vector; essentially a virus with all the pathogenic material removed. In its place Dr Chu has inserted fragments of Ribonucleic acid (RNA), a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. The virus transports these to the cells in the eye’s ciliary body, a tissue which produces the aqueous humour. Here, these RNA fragments interrupt the production of some of the cellular machinery that’s responsible for maintaining the pressure in the eye, and thus lower the IOP.

Initially, Dr Chu investigated a number of methods to reduce the IOP, before settling on disrupting the Aqp1 gene, which is responsible for making Aquaporin water channels that the eye uses to maintain IOP. He demonstrated a reproducible 22% reduction in IOP in a mouse model, before then determining that the gene Aqp1 is also expressed in human ciliary bodies, and that the same viral vector he used in the mouse model can also be used.

Dr Chu said, “We initially tried disrupting a variety of cellular mechanisms involving different pathways that maintain IOP, but we identified targeting Aqp1 provided the most robust effects. We were also able to disrupt Aqp1 in human ciliary body donor tissue and so our further research is focusing on preparing the treatment for clinical trials.”

“We are excited as this approach has the potential to halt the progress of glaucoma for great numbers of people, following a single minimally invasive injection, and of course provide huge long-term savings to healthcare systems.”Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide; it affects roughly 2% of all people over 40. Researchers at the University of Bristol are pioneering a new way of treating glaucoma using gene therapy.

 

 

 

The Enterprise Fellowship Programme offered by the Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Hub is now open for applications.

This programme is for researchers, recent graduates or international PhD students based in the UK who have developed an innovative idea within their universities/research institutes, who are at a relatively advanced stage of readiness for commercialisation and are considering setting up a company.

If the above applies to you and you wish to pursue a career at the centre of a start-up or spin out company, then Enterprise Fellowship offers to support you setting up a company by providing you with up to £60,000 equity-free funding, training and mentoring, PR, marketing and promotion, access to the Taylor Centre and access to networks of investors, experts and advisers as well as other entrepreneurs.

This is a full-time commitment (1/01/2020 – 31/12/2020) in the sense that you cannot have another role whilst on the Fellowship. Stage 1 deadline is on the 19^th of August 2019 and if you are successful, you’ll enter Stage 2 with the deadline on the 16^th of September 2019.

You will in all likelihood already be working with us (the Research Commercialisation team within the University), and we are involved in the application process where university research and hence University owned IP is involved. A summary of what a commercially strong project typically involves can be found here. For other resources on commercialising your research, please check out our website.

For the full description of this RAEng Enterprise Fellow programme, click here.