Fourth Accelerate@Babraham cohort has quintet of winners
Five life science start-ups have been selected from the fourth Accelerate@Babraham quartet to win places on what is now recognised as one of the top 25 biotech incubators in Europe.
CamRegen, Creasallis, Medusa Pharma, Mosaic Therapeutics and Neobe Therapeutics fought off stiff competition to book their reward – free lab space at Babraham Research Campus along with unrivalled access to experts, mentors and investors, in addition to a £10,000 cash prize.
The programme began in 2018. Winners then included Kalium Diagnostics and Antiverse. The latest intake started in September 2021 with a week-long in-person bootcamp. Last month they presented their business and future plans, plus their experience of the programme, to an audience of mentors, investors and Accelerate@Babraham strategic partners.
CEO and founder of Creasillis, Zahra Jawad, explained how she incorporated the company solely to join Accelerate@Babraham, which she calls “a wonderful programme for any would-be entrepreneurs”.
Creasallis is a creative antibodies solutions company addressing bottlenecks in antibody-based therapeutics and has secured phase one and two funding. It’s ‘plug and play’ technology CreaTap improves the tumour penetrability of antibodies.
Zahra said: “It’s opened so many doors and the friendships we’ve developed with the rest of the cohort have been an added bonus and we will support each other as we go forward.”
CamRegen, a Cambridge University spin-out, develops collagen-based medical devices to revolutionise neurosurgery by reducing the risk of infections and readmissions due to failed dura repairs. Its flexible collagen membrane works for wound care, hernia repair and orthopaedics.
CEO Siddhartha Ghose explained how the company now has a clear business strategy as it looks for £4m seed funding.
CSO David Barrett added: “Having people going through the same experience and really understand what you’re going through has been a great bonding experience.
“It’s built my confidence in how to talk and think about the company.”
Imperial College London spinout Medusa Pharmaceuticals is working to combat antimicrobial resistance by breathing life back into existing drugs. Its technology has huge potential for cystic fibrosis patients.
CEO James Duboff said: “We want to stop people dying due to drug resistance. We’ve found Accelerate@Babraham hugely beneficial. The support and guidance is second to none.”
Cancer drug discovery company Mosaic Therapeutics is tackling cancers by reinventing target discovery using the power of large-scale genomics and artificial intelligence.
CEO Adrian Ibrahim told how the company started with £1m from Innovate UK in April 2020 and is supported by the Wellcome Sanger Institute.
He said: “It’s been a fantastic programme and we’re privileged to be a part of it.”
Neobe Therapeutics is harnessing the synthetic biology toolkit to engineer tumour-colonising bacteria to disrupt the immuno-suppressive microenvironment of ‘cold’ tumours and enable immunotherapies to be used as a treatment.
CEO Pedro Correa de Sampaio said: “Our lab started to close down so moving to the Babraham Research Campus literally saved our business at a crucial time.”
Derek Jones, CEO at Babraham Research Campus, said: “They’ve done a great job and have been really receptive. It’s been a great adventure and it’s not over yet as they will all present at the Babraham Investor Conference in May.”
Accelerate@Babraham is supported by AstraZeneca, Eisai, LifeArc, Mundipharma – and Kidney Research UK, who came on board last year.
Executive director of development Marc Stowell said: “When you hear of companies that hadn’t even opened a bank account to get to the point where they are now in just five months, it’s absolutely phenomenal and testament to how good the programme is.
“We’ll do everything we can to support it.”
- Thanks to Sarah Brereton for her significant contribution to this article.
