Stars of UK Life Sciences Celebrate OBN Awards

Innovators, fundraisers and dealmakers joined biotech organisation OBN at its glittering Annual Awards ceremony to celebrate the best of the UK life sciences industry held at the beginning of October at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Welcoming 150 senior industry and academic representatives from across the UK, Jon Rees, OBN’s CEO said: “The quality of nominees continues to rise year on year. Compiling a shortlist and picking winners gets harder. We have the opportunity to applaud the cream of successful public-private collaborations turning ideas into clinical practice, investors who take the risks and support promising projects, and the pharmaceutical companies that use their commercial skills to bring products to market.”

The winners are:

Adaptimmune: Best New Biotech Development Programme Award, sponsored by J A Kemp

Adaptimmune uses genetic engineering technology to create T-cell receptors which target specific cancer cells. The lead candidate is in US clinical trials in several indications including multiple myeloma, melanoma, sarcoma and ovarian cancer. Interim results presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology in December 2013 reported encouraging results with multiple myeloma patients participating in a Phase I/II clinical study. 

Nightstar, Best Emerging Biotech Company, sponsored by Penningtons Manches LLP

For emerging biotech companies, less than five years old, which – in the judges’ opinions – have the most promise. In January Oxford University spin-out Nightstar received £20m from Syncona, the Wellcome Trust venture arm, to develop gene therapies for degenerative eye conditions. Its lead programme addresses a rare inherited cause of blindness – choroideremia – affecting around 1 in 50,000 people.

Circassia, Best Emerging Biotech Fundraiser, sponsored by WilmerHale

Judges considered the amount raised and quality of the company’s development programme. In March this year Circassia, an eight year old Imperial College London spinout, raised £200m – listing at the top of its range and valuing the company at £581 million, representing the UK’s largest biotech stock market listing in more than a decade. Circassia’s cat allergy vaccine is in Phase 3 trials.

 Astex, Best Biotech Dealmaker, sponsored by World Courier

For companies with an estimated valuation less than £1bn judged to have concluded the best deal in the past 15 months. Astex, a leader in fragment-based drug discovery, was acquired in October 2013 by Japanese firm Otsuka Pharmaceutical for about $886m. The deal promised to enhance Astex’s capacity to develop new therapeutics for cancer while Otsuka could tap into its potential new drugs for leukaemia, prostate, lung and ovarian cancers.

 Isansys, Best New Medtech Development Programme, sponsored by Milton Park

Isansys is a provider of real-time physiological patient monitoring, delivering strongly predictive information direct to clinicians. Having won two national Small Business Research Initiative healthcare contracts, the company expanded its technology into patient safety and cancer. It is extending its CE-marked surveillance system to provide warning of sepsis in home-based patients. This could benefit some of the 20,000 UK patients a year undergoing chemotherapy.

Intelligent Ultrasound, Best Emerging Medtech Company, sponsored by The BioHub Birmingham

Intelligent Ultrasound develops and sells products and services that make medical ultrasound imaging a more effective diagnostic tool for example in monitoring foetal growth and image-guided surgery systems.

 Oxford Immunotec, Best Emerging Medtech Fundraiser, sponsored by James Cowper LLP

For companies with valuation of less than £250m, this year’s recipient is Oxford Immunotec which completed a $74m listing on NASDAQ in November 2013. The first diagnostic product developed using this global company’s T-SPOT technology platform is a TB test for latent Tuberculosis (TB) infection. T-SPOT.TB test is approved for sale in over 50 countries. 

Oxford Gene Technology, Best Medtech Dealmaker, sponsored by OBN Medtech Advisory Group

Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) was judged to have made the best Medtech deal for its acquisition of Cambridge-based Cytocell in March. Seen as an excellent strategic fit, Cytocell brought innovative DNA technology for the detection of gene rearrangements related to inherited disease and cancer to OGT, positioning it for growth across new markets and application areas.

 Imperial Innovations, Highest Impact Investor, sponsored by Akesios Associates

Imperial Innovations focuses on commercialising leading UK academic research sourced from the Golden Triangle between Cambridge, Oxford and London. Innovations received the Highest Impact Investor award for its significant contribution to UK life science company growth, bridging the early funding gap with the following investments in the last 15 months: MISSION Therapeutics (£2.5m); Pulmocide (£1.8m); TopiVert (£5.9m); Crescendo Biologics (£3.3m); and Abzena (£10.5m). Seed investments were made in Puridify (undisclosed) and Oxford Biotrans (£0.6m).

Shire, Best Pharma BD&L Team, sponsored by EY

Shire’s Business Development and Licensing team scooped the award, this year for the pace and strength of its activities, including the acquisition of ViroPharma (Jan 2014; $4.2bn), Lumena Pharmaceuticals (May 2014; $260m) and Fibrotech (May 2014, $75m). Its portfolio was expanded by licencing AGT-182 from ArmaGen (Jul 2104; $225m) and rebalanced by selling distribution rights for Estrace to Trimel Pharma (July 2014; $41m) and Dermagraft to Organogenesis (Jan 2014; $300m). Partnerships were also inked with Prasco Labs (Fosrenol distribution; Oct 2013), Santaris Pharma (LNA Drugs; Aug 2013) and arGEN-X (drug discovery partnership; June 2014).

 Cranfield University, Bedford Hospital NHS Trust Best Public-Private Collaboration, sponsored by Oxford Academic Health Science Network

The partners worked together to develop the OsteoVibe mobile diagnostic tool for osteoporosis/bone fractures in primary care settings. It uses non-invasive bone excitation technology which has been experimentally validated under laboratory conditions at Cranfield University. Once the engineering prototype has been completed, Bedford Hospital NHS Trust will conduct clinical studies.

For further information on the Annual Awards contact OBN www.obn.org.uk