Oxford Investment Opportunity Network

The following six companies are seeking investment via the Network as a result of the 27 October 2009 OION investment meeting at Milton Park in Abingdon. The descriptions available summarise the investment proposal made by the company. The information is provided by the company and has not been vetted in any way by OION.

If you are interested in receiving further information on any of the companies then please contact us.

The product is only the single use nasal device which accurately delivers dry powder to specific sites in the nasal cavity. It:
 is simple to use
 can extend the patent life of drugs
 confers patient comfort
 is preservative-free
 does not require cold chain
 avoids needle-stick injury

Nasal drug delivery is a growing global market and our therapeutic targets are neurology (>$120 billion) and vaccines (>$20 billion). There are competitors, but company A's product's USPs are robust. Unit costs can come within 25p of a needle and syringe.

Company A’s strategy is not drug development, but revenue from licensing agreements for six initial medicines in years 2 to 5, with staged partner milestone payments in line with industry norms. Break even is in year 5 and there are exit opportunities from year 3.

There is an experienced management and technical team. Three patents are granted and two more filed. A second SEEDA grant has been awarded and FSE SEED equity is conditionally committed, subject to matched funding. Archimedes is our formulation partner and we are collaborating with the Health Protection Agency at Porton Down.

We have a prototype, but need funding for pre-production and commercialisation.

Company B, a spin-out from Imperial College, develops products for the treatment and diagnostic imaging of cancers, using biologically-targeted agents which are designed to be far more effective, safer and more patient-friendly than conventional cancer therapies.

Company B has already demonstrated that it can cure human tumours in mice and has filed 5 patents, one of which has been granted in the US and AUS. External endorsement has come from eminent clinicians, and the company was cited as one of the top 200 innovative companies by BioWorld Today.

A prostate cancer product is scheduled to enter preclinical development in 2010 and a licensing partner will be sought for this in order to generate an early revenue stream. The company will enhance the value of its platform technology by pursuing other targets for proof of concept prior to a trade sale within the next 3-5 years. The nature of the technology is such that it presents a relatively low risk profile.
Company B's' semi-virtual business model and its ability to leverage resources at Imperial College, make it a lean and flexible organisation. This, together with its ground-breaking technology platform and products, makes Company B an exciting investment and/or acquisition prospect.

Company B is now seeking funding of £450k to enable it to achieve a significant value-adding milestone for its lead product for prostate cancer, which it is developing as a 'see-and-treat' product for combined diagnostic MRI imaging and therapy.

Pharmaceutical R&D is in a state of flux. The number of registered new compounds has continued to decline as R&D expenditure has increased. The industry spends $2bn p.a. on high throughput screening and yet a majority of HTS projects fail to discover new leads. In response, the industry is seeking to outsource 30% of its R&D in a quest for greater efficiency.

Company C – an Oxford University chemistry spin-out – is perfectly positioned to address these challenges. It has invested £3m to date in developing a proprietary set of tools to enable low-cost, high-productivity virtual screening. It has developed an in-house database of 35m compounds with calculated properties which is screened for potential lead candidates using its highly accurate analysis tools. Company C has shown that it is far more effective than traditional HTS at discovering active leads.

Company C is bringing this new technology to bear through an innovative, cloud computing-based software as a service (SaaS) business model. This delivers the required computing power cost-effectively and on-demand, allowing pharmaceutical companies to show huge savings in capital and operational expenditure.

The company is led by a hugely experienced commercial and scientific management team, skilled in growing successful early stage companies. It is looking to raise around £1m to fund commercial growth and to reach profitability; £400k of this is already committed from existing shareholders.

Company D has made a breakthrough in the automated handling of magnetic particles.
The company’s technology is based on ultrasound processing of bacteria for biodefence purposes at Dstl, Porton Down.
Company D has refined the ultrasound approach and recently made a breakthrough with a novel ‘dual-force’ technique; combining ultrasound with magnetic separation in a new integrated instrument and disposable device platform.

Benefits of the product:
• Automated processing
• improves performance of any diagnostic assay
• active mixing speeds up reaction times
• No moving parts reduces instrumentation costs
• short development cycle
• fingerstick to larger volumes e.g. 3 mLs for TB
• Gentle forces maintains cell viability
• protected by 4 patent applications.

Operating since Sept 2006, the company has been funded by a syndicate of seed / regional funds. Company D is now seeking to raise £0.5 million to be used to continue the development of the dual force chamber and to create a disposable device for improved tuberculosis detection.

Company D will also seek licensing and collaboration opportunities with major IVD companies. The business aim is to secure a rapid trade sale exit by Q3 2011/Q1 2012.

We are looking for investors to join the existing syndicate – an opportunity for an Angel level investment in a technology de-risked with 3 years development work.

Founded in 2006, Company E has developed technology and products for real-time diagnosis of skin cancer and other skin conditions. Based on granted patents exclusive to the company, the products utilise a new imaging modality - ‘Optical Coherence Tomography’ (OCT), to provide detailed sub-surface images of human soft tissue at near-microscopic resolution.

The company has raised £1.8M through LBA, OION and partners during 2007-9 to develop and launch products in the field of cancer diagnosis and dermatology. In August 2009 the company announced regulatory approval for its first clinical product, and also commenced multi-centre clinical trials on skin cancer.

The market for diagnosis of, and also guiding surgical excision of skin cancers is estimated to exceed $2BN in the US – a US office was opened in June 09. The company also plans to target other multi-$BN cancer markets with variants of its core technology.

Company E has generated over £400k sales to date and has very strong management, who have together built an impressive track record of meeting milestones on time and on budget. They are raising £500k+ from LBA & OION angels, to support completion of clinical trials, regulatory approval in US and for commercial expansion into the US and Europe.

Company D has a breakthrough proprietary therapeutic platform that promises to revitalise current anti-infective molecules by reversing established resistance, and has the potential to become a completely novel class of anti-infectives that could overcome the major problem faced by new anti-bacterials, that of widespread and rapid development of resistance.

Company D was founded in 2008 as a spin out from BBSRC’s John Innes Institute after ground-breaking work on the use of transcription factor decoys (TFDs) to attack bacterial resistance mechanisms, and has already successfully demonstrated the efficacy of its lead product against MRSA in an animal model. It has also developed an extensive pipeline against Gram-negative bacteria.

The company is seeking £250k from new investors as part of a £650k funding round, cornerstoned by existing investors. The company operates a highly cash-efficient semi-virtual model, so this funding will enable Procarta to improve the formulation of its MRSA candidate by mid 2010 and generate data that it will use to secure a licensing deal in 2011. Interest is already being shown by some of the leading pharma companies.

Following exemplification of the platform with the development and partnering of the MRSA programme, further deals are anticipated on other programmes in the pipeline. A profitable exit via a trade sale is targeted between 2011 and 2013 and no further equity capital is expected to be required.