UK government invests £30m in emerging medtech companies and
projects
21 November 2014
Innovate UK and the UK Medical Research Council (MRC)
announce awards totalling over £30m in companies and projects
developing new medical treatments and technologies. The money is
being delivered through rounds five and six of the BioMedical
Catalyst (BMC), part of the Government’s Life Sciences Strategy.
29 companies and universities from across the UK now have the
funding to further develop new medicines, diagnostics or devices to
tackle healthcare challenges ranging from cancer to childbirth
complications. Projects supported include:
- ‘pH paper’ to prevent fatality through incorrect placement
of feeding tubes (Edinburgh);
- Ozone-based device to decontaminate medical equipment
(Glasgow);
- Dressings with embedded clotting agents which can be left in
the body (Leeds);
- A bio-engineered ‘scaffold’ to repair injured tendons
(Manchester);
- Novel drugs to reduce swelling and pain caused by rheumatoid
arthritis (London);
- Headband-mounted heart rate sensor to help resuscitate
newborn babies (Derby);
- New gene therapy to tackle nerve and muscle degeneration of
the fatal Huntington’s Disease (Oxford);
- A revolutionary ‘Gamma Camera’ to help diagnose and treat
more cancers (Camberley, Surrey);
- Cell therapy to repair liver damage (Edinburgh);
- A drug that protects vital organs from damage following a
heart attack (Cambridge).
This announcement builds on the 23 separate feasibility awards
totalling over £3 million, made earlier in 2014, and brings the
BMC’s total investment since opening in 2012 to over £200 million.
In that time it has supported innovation from some 250 small and
medium companies and universities, and attracted an additional £100
million in private investment.
Minister for Life Sciences George Freeman said, “These
investments demonstrate just how many businesses and universities
across the country are developing life-saving treatments while
adding real value and vitality to their regional economies. With
Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council, we are helping ensure
this industry has a global reach built on solid local success.”
The Biomedical Catalyst was set up jointly by Innovate UK and the
MRC to offer funding for development of innovative ideas that could
save lives, improve treatment for patients and also provide
significant UK economic impact.
Any UK small or medium-sized business or academic undertaking
research and development may apply to the BMC on a rolling basis,
with applications assessed by independent experts.
Iain Gray, Chief Executive of Innovate UK said: “The Biomedical
Catalyst has been successful not just in supporting individual
healthcare innovations but also attracting additional investment
from the private sector. These companies we’re supporting via the
BMC are all developing innovations with the potential to transform
healthcare and achieve commercial success. We’re proud to be
supporting them on that journey from healthcare concept through to
availability in the marketplace.”
Dr Jim Smith, Deputy Chief Executive of the MRC added: “The
Biomedical Catalyst is a unique funding stream that is intended to
maximise the impact of our great British research base. Supporting
productive relationships between academics and industry will help
discoveries to progress seamlessly from the lab to the clinic,
meaning new treatments and innovations can reach patients as soon as
possible.”
Further information on Innovate UK funding:
https://interact.innovateuk.org
Case Studies of projects funded
Revolutionary pain-busting treatment to reduce swelling
in rheumatoid arthritis
Lead organisation: Modern
Biosciences, London
(BMC grant: £2,400,000)
Rheumatoid
arthritis (RA) is a chronic, painful condition. Unfortunately,
current drugs do not work in all patients, are often poorly
tolerated and are expensive. MBS has developed a new class of drugs
that not only reduce inflammation and pain, but may enable bone to
start repairing itself, thus reversing the crippling effect of RA on
joints. This would offer unique respite to patients compared with
existing drug therapies.
Synthetic bone-graft substitute, revolutionising
treatment of severe bone fractures
Lead organisation:
Sirakoss Ltd, Edinburgh
(BMC grant £939,895)
Every day
worldwide, thousands of patients undergo surgery to fuse bone
together. This surgery is often the result of a trauma event where
the bone has failed to heal, a congenital skeletal defect or a
degenerative disease of the spine (a condition that is growing
rapidly with an aging global population). SIRAKOSS has developed
MaxSi™ Graft a synthetic bone graft substitute (sBGS) which will
revolutionise the treatment of bone defects and fusions. This unique
technology not only removes any need to take bone from another part
of the patient’s body, an often painful or debilitating process, it
also offers a rapid, controllable and affordable alternative to
other treatments. The project will enable pre-clinical studies and
progress towards full clinical use.
Headband-mounted heart rate sensor to help resuscitate
newborn babies
Lead organisation: HeartLight Systems,
Derby:
(BMC grant: £1,415,727)
Around 10% of newborn babies
need resuscitation. Their heart rate needs to be monitored to check
that resuscitation is working, but this means interrupting the
procedure to apply a stethoscope. There can also be errors in
stethoscope readings. ‘Heartlight’ platform technology can
accurately read a baby’s heartbeat through a sensor mounted in a
band placed carefully around the baby’s forehead. The company plans
to replace the stethoscope with Heartlight so that clinicians can
monitor heart rate and resuscitate simultaneously. This will reduce
delays and also longer-term health risks for babies requiring
resuscitation.
‘Gamma’ cameras to improve cancer diagnosis, treatment
and subsequent recovery
Lead organisation: Xtrahl Ltd,
Surrey
(BMC grant: £668,126)
This project will develop a
unique Compact Gamma Camera (CGC) able to greatly improve the
diagnosis and surgery of patients suffering from cancers such as
breast cancer and melanoma. This will be achieved by decreasing
recovery time following surgery due to damaging less tissue and
nerve masses. The CGC would improve Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy
(SLNB) detection accuracy to 99.5% while providing cancer diagnosis,
surgery planning and imaging at 60% less cost than the current
best-in-class gamma cameras. It also has the potential to deliver
healthcare savings of £650 million each year in targeted markets.
Dressings with embedded clotting agents which can be left
in the body
Lead organisations: Xiros (Leeds) and
Haemostatix (Nottingham)
(BMC grant: £767,186)
The invention
integrates a haemostat (clotting agent) into fibres made from a
material which can also clot blood. These are formed into dressings
designed to stop bleeding quickly. In this way, three modes of
action combine to produce an easily used and highly effective
product for surgery, A&E or the battlefield. The dressings can be
biologically absorbed so can be left in the body if necessary in
complete safety. This project uses wet-spinning technology developed
at Leeds-based Xiros Ltd, and a synthetic clotting agent from
Haemostatix Ltd, located in Nottingham.
‘pH paper’ to prevent fatality through incorrect
placement of feeding tubes
Lead organisation: Ingenza,
Edinburgh
(BMC grant: £829,336)
Patients unable to feed
themselves are frequently provided with a feeding tube via the nose
and into the stomach for nutritional and medication support.
Inadvertent placement of the tube outside the stomach, notably in
the lung, in extreme cases can lead to fatality. This collaboration
will produce and test a device for use in bedside placement checks
that addresses and potentially overcomes a persistent shortcoming of
the current pH based test in widespread use, by incorporating the
measurement of a stomach enzyme in addition to stomach acid, to
verify correct tube placement.
Targeting mutant cancers
Lead organisation:
PhoreMost Ltd, Cambridge
(BMC grant: £1,386, 133)
PhoreMost
has developed a new technology called ‘Protein interference’ that
can systematically identify the best new targets for tackling highly
complex diseases, such as cancer. With this grant, PhoreMost will be
optimising the potency and selectivity of a promising new class of
drug candidate for pancreatic cancer, which represents the 4th most
common cause of cancer deaths world-wide, but where no effective
therapy currently exists.
Other awards to companies based in: Glasgow, Swansea, Oxford,
Manchester, Bromsgrove and Welwyn Garden City
Academic-led Case Studies (MRC)
Cell therapy to ‘rebuild’ the damaged liver
(BMC grant: £3,065,647)
Lead organisation: University of
Edinburgh
Scientists from the MRC Centre for Regenerative
Medicine, at the University of Edinburgh, have been awarded an
initial £2m to carry out the world’s first clinical trial using a
new type of cell therapy to treat liver cirrhosis. Accounting for
around 4,000 UK deaths a year and huge costs for the NHS, liver
cirrhosis is a common disease where scar tissue forms in the organ
as a result of long-term damage.
This damage can be inflicted by many causes including hepatitis,
obesity, alcohol abuse and some genetic and immune conditions. The
only successful treatment for the end-stage liver disease is an
organ transplant, but this is severely limited by a lack of
available donors and risks of rejection. Many people die each year
waiting for an organ to become available. Now researchers are hoping
to reduce the need for transplantation by developing a new treatment
for cirrhosis that exploits the liver’s natural ability to repair
itself.
The therapy is based on a type of white blood cell called the
macrophage. During the normal repair process, macrophages reduce
scar tissue and stimulate the liver’s own stem cells to expand and
form into healthy new liver cells. Scientists will take cells from
the blood of patients with liver cirrhosis and turn them into
macrophages in the lab using chemical signals. These new cells will
then be re-injected into the patient with the aims of reducing
scarring and helping to rebuild the damaged organ from within.
Bio-engineered scaffold to repair injured tendons
(BMC grant £1,224,836)
Lead organisation: University
of Manchester
Researchers at the University of Manchester have
invented a medical device that could improve the outcome of tendon
surgery in thousands of patients every year. Tendon injuries are
repaired by surgery, but this leads to the formation of scar tissue,
which is not as strong or flexible as natural tendon tissue. As a
result, around a third of patients still have problems with their
tendon after treatment. The team at Manchester has employed
bioengineering techniques to develop a new type of electrospun
scaffold that can be used for tendon repair via keyhole surgery. As
the tendon begins to heal, force is distributed across different
parts of the scaffold so that physiotherapy can begin earlier and
scar tissue formation is reduced. Previous MRC translational funding
allowed the device to be developed and tested in rats, and now the
group will go on to use £1.2m Biomedical Catalyst funding to
evaluate the approach in larger animals, laying the groundwork for
human testing.
Paving the way for gene therapy in Huntington's disease
(BMC grant: £1,014,576)
Lead organisation: University of
Oxford
Scientists at the University of Oxford have been awarded
£1m to tackle the challenge of delivering gene therapy to
Huntington’s disease patients. Huntington’s is a devastating
disorder caused by mutations in a single gene, which result in
production of a toxic protein. This protein accumulates in the
brain, resulting in the progressive degeneration of nerve and muscle
cells leading to death, on average within 25 years of diagnosis.
Around one in 10,000 people is affected by the condition, for
which there is currently no cure. One potential avenue for treating
the disease is via gene therapy, which would target the mutated gene
and suppress production of the toxic protein. However, the affected
brain tissue is separated from the circulating blood supply, making
it difficult to target with drugs. The Oxford researchers hope to
employ exosomes, a naturally occurring cell transport process, to
deliver the therapy directly to the brain. They will test their
approach in a mouse model of the disease in the hope of proving that
this could be a mechanism to deliver human therapy.
New drug could protect vital organs from damage following
heart attack
(BMC grant: £799,326)
Lead
organisation: MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit
Dr Mike Murphy from
the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit and colleagues Dr Thomas Krieg
(University of Cambridge) and Professor Raimondo Ascione (University
of Bristol) will build on previous MRC funding to develop an
experimental compound into a drug that could protect the vital
organs from damage following a heart attack.
Tests in mice have shown that the compound, called MitoSNO,
protects heart tissue from reperfusion injury, which occurs when the
blood supply to an organ is interrupted, for example by a blood
clot. If the blood supply is restored the tissue can recover, but
the sudden return of oxygen-rich blood leads to extensive tissue
damage that worsens the long-term prognosis for the patient.
All of the 100,000 people a year in the UK who suffer a heart
attack will experience reperfusion injury, which is caused by the
production of harmful molecules, called free radicals, by the heart
cells. MitoSNO blocks the production of these free radicals,
therefore protecting the tissue from damage. Early tests have shown
that the compound is effective in mice, and the researchers will now
fine-tune production of a drug that can be tested in pigs, before
moving onto early human trials.