Future Planet Capital, a London, UK-based investment group, has acquired Midven Ltd, one of Britain’s oldest venture capital firms, with a view to expanding its network of academic and public sector relationships in the life sciences. Announced on 8 April, the value of the transaction wasn’t disclosed.
A new UK company focused on developing small molecule drugs for rare neuromuscular and metabolic diseases is being prepared for launch following the publication of research on mitochondrial dysfunction in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. The company, MitoRx Therapeutics, is being spun out of the University of Exeter. Jon Rees, a life sciences consultant, has been named chief executive.
A vaccine developed by Russia to prevent coronavirus disease has been shown to be 91.6% effective, according to data from a Phase 3 trial published in The Lancet on 2 February 2021. The vaccine, Gam-COVID-Vac (Sputnik V), is a combined vector vaccine carrying the gene for the SARS-CoV-2 full length glycoprotein S. It is intended to elicit antibodies to the virus glycoprotein as well as antigen-specific cellular immunity.
AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford have become the third developers to report high levels of efficacy for their experimental vaccine to prevent Covid-19. The partners are now preparing for regulatory submissions, and have reaffirmed a commitment to supply their vaccine globally on a not-for-profit basis for the duration of the pandemic.
A new venture fund designed to provide seed funding to start-up companies in the UK life science sector has raised £15 million. Start Codon Fund I LP was created by the Start Codon business accelerator. The limited partner investors in the fund include Novartis International AG and Cambridge Innovation Capital, a venture investor focused on opportunities in the Cambridge University ecosystem.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A Doudna for their discovery of CRISPR-Cas9 genetic scissors, a method of genome editing. It marks the first time ever that two female scientists have jointly won the award.
The pair sparked a revolution in genome editing with their work, and CRISPR-Cas9 technology is now used widely in basic science, biotechnology and the development of future therapeutics. The tool can be used to change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision.
This year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology has been awarded to a team of scientists who discovered the hepatitis C virus. Harvey J Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M Rice have made a “decisive contribution to the fight against blood-borne hepatitis,” according to the prize committee.
The virus is a major global health problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer. An estimated 71 million people have chronic hepatitis C virus infection, with almost 400,000 people dying from the disease in 2016, according to the World Health Organization.
A case study of a 45-year old woman with severe Covid-19 has shown that administration of APN01, an experimental biologic, enabled the generation of neutralising antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and a rapid drop in virus load. The results of the study were reported online in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine on 24 September 2020.
APN01 is being developed by the Austrian company Apeiron Biologics AG and has been shown to be safe in Phase 1 studies of healthy volunteers. It is currently being investigated in Phase 2 trials in Austria, Germany, Denmark, the UK and Russia.
An international research team based at the University of Bristol in the UK has identified a fatty acid binding pocket in the structure of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that they believe could be exploited to develop small molecule drugs effective against the virus. According to a report published in Science on 21 September, the pocket binds strongly to linoleic acid, an essential fatty acid. When such binding occurs, the shape of the spike protein molecule is distorted in a way that severely restricts its ability to interact with angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2).
What makes a life science ecosystem flourish? Part of the answer is good universities, venture capital and a critical mass of entrepreneurs eager to commercialise new medicines. These are all features displayed by Cambridge, UK. How this plays out, and what might be done to improve the ecosystem were the subject of discussions at the virtual On Helix meeting on 13 July, organised by One Nucleus, a membership group.