Stemnovate raises more than £1m to expand commercialisation of its drug discovery and diagnostic technology
Stemnovate has raised more than £1million to bolster the commercialisation of its drug discovery and diagnostic technologies.
The Babraham Research Campus-based company worked with Gary Douglas Beet at Innovate UK Edge to raise the funding through the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), which offers tax reliefs to investors.
The lead investor in the round, Dr Thomas Haizel, is managing director of Anglia DNA, a leading provider of Covid-19 travel tests, and he will join the board. Stemnovate also welcomes its first female angel investor, lawyer Baroness Janet Cohen, a Labour peer and Newnham College alumna who is also known for writing crime fiction.
Stemnovate CEO Dr Ruchi Sharma told the Cambridge Independent: “During the Covid phase, we continued our research and commercialisation, which created new products and opportunities to grow fast.”
The company’s drug discovery platform features multi-organ modelling to evaluate drug molecule metabolism and toxicity, improving clinical trials and patient safety outcomes. Its laboratory models and liver-on-chip technology are helping to reduce and replace the need for animal testing.
“We have already got top tier pharma committed to a project with us. It’s a long-term project which we’re excited about, and we work with a lot of universities across Europe,” said Dr Sharma.
Stemnovate also has cell lines, a liver platform and vaccine platform.to aid research and development for pharma, contract research organisations, academics and biotechs.
It has developed the SARS CoV-2 RDK - a novel, in vitro rapid detection kit for Covid-19 on a chip. It uses high fidelity nucleic acid amplification on a chip for accuracy and a SARS CoV-2 specific multi-probe assay for specificity.
“This investment will help the company strengthen its marketing and sales for both drug discovery and diagnostics and create sustainability,” said Dr Sharma. “Five new sales, marketing and operations positions are available for immediate start.”
The company is also supporting a government Kickstart scheme to help train young people in the biotechnology field.
“We are looking for some more space to expand,” added Dr Sharma.
Read more
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Stemnovate creates rapid diagnostic kit for Covid-19 that solves problems of false positives
Stemnovate offers ‘unique’ multi-organ drug screening on reprogrammed human cells
How Stemnovate will change drug development with its liver-on-a-chip technology
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