Creating and funding new ventures
Cancer Research Horizons has a long-standing track record of establishing and growing startup companies. We’ve played a role in the creation of 68 startups, with our portfolio of existing companies raising in excess of £3bn in total capital. The dedicated Cancer Research Horizons Ventures team is tasked with identifying innovative oncology-focused venture propositions, the exceptional entrepreneurs behind them and accelerating the formation and financing of early-stage startups.
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Our new Seed Fund
In June 2022, we launched the Cancer Research Horizons Seed Fund with the primary purpose of bridging one of the most challenging stages: attracting early-stage risk capital. The new Fund will build on our startup success and accelerate and expand new company creation and early growth.
Managed by the Cancer Research Horizons Ventures team, our Seed Fund is an impact-driven and evergreen philanthropy fund that invests in promising, early-stage propositions from within and beyond the Cancer Research UK network. The fund was launched with a rolling £15m/5-year investment commitment from Cancer Research UK. Complementing this, Cancer Research Horizons set a fundraising target of an additional £15m to match the Cancer Research UK investment and extend the fund’s leverage, scale, and longevity.
The fund invests up to £1m at various early stages, ranging from technology validation for startup propositions through to making equity investments in high-potential, early-stage companies in the cancer space. Our investment remit is broad and includes new therapeutics, preventative measures, diagnostics, medical devices, and AI and data-driven solutions.
We are science-led, actively pursuing the truly novel ideas with the potential to induce a step change in the field of oncology. Investment decisions are made based on the prospect of increasing the chances a life-saving cancer treatment or diagnostic will reach the market. For example, the funding would ideally assist an early-stage company to attract the follow-on funding necessary for it to grow.
In the event any financial returns are generated, they will be returned to the fund and into cancer research.
Sergio Quezada, Rebecca Fitzgerald and Andrew Turnbull discuss how our Seed Fund helps translate research.
Seed Fund year in review
Over 2022/23, we identified approximately 60 potential investment opportunities from across both academic researchers (from our research community and beyond) and existing startup companies seeking early-stage capital. Of these, approximately 35 opportunities were evaluated in greater depth by our internal triage group, and eight full Seed Fund proposals were submitted to our Seed Fund Investment Committee.
Over 2022/23, we committed £2m of Cancer Research Horizons’ Seed Fund, with deployment subject to investment conditions being met (e.g. securing co-investment).
This included two committed investments in new companies in the process of being formed based on discoveries arising from Cancer Research UK-funded research. On formation, the companies will operate in stealth mode to ensure they retain a competitive advantage over potential competitors.
New startup portfolio companies
Over the course of 2022/23, Cancer Research Horizons took new equity interests in seven startup companies, including the three companies highlighted below.
Alethiomics: taking on myeloproliferative neoplasms
Alethiomics is a drug discovery company focused on developing targeted therapies to treat a family of blood cancers called myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN). A spinout from the University of Oxford, the Company is based on world-leading discoveries in clinical haematology and single-cell multi-omics by its founders, Professor Adam Mead and Professor Beth Psaila.
Infinitopes: curtailing cancer metastasis
Infinitopes is a pioneer in precision immunomics medicines. A Cancer Research UK-led biotech spinout from Oxford University, the company aims to empower the immune system to fight cancer metastases with unique, de novo antigen discovery technologies, innovative high-efficiency vectors and intelligent clinical trial design.
Oxomics: AI-powered next-generation diagnosis
Oxomics is developing a minimally invasive, single-shot platform technology for disease diagnosis and prognosis. The technology combines analysis of metabolites in blood samples with machine learning to identify patterns of change that indicate disease. Oxomics will first demonstrate detection of lung cancer and melanoma metastasis in patients before expanding to diagnosis of many different cancers across broad populations, including those with non-specific symptoms.
Portfolio update
We have built an incredible assembly line for startup companies to bring early-stage technologies out of the research lab and translate them into patient benefit. Our startup portfolio secures funding from investors around the world who believe in our world-class science and the power of partnership.
In 2022/23, five companies in our portfolio initiated new clinical studies (see below), and a number of our other portfolio companies reported significant preclinical and clinical milestones. Collectively, our portfolio of companies raised over £100m in investment, despite the challenging financial climate.
The year also saw the acquisition of three companies in our portfolio: Oxford-based GENinCode acquired Abcodia, and the global biopharmaceutical company Takeda finalised its acquisitions of GammaDelta Therapeutics and Adaptate Biotherapeutics after exercising its options to acquire in 2021/22. In other news, Fierce Biotech named STORM Therapeutics one of its 2022 “Fierce 15” (designating it as one of the most exciting biotechnology companies in the industry). Cyted reached the milestone of providing 10,000 oesophageal cancer detection tests for NHS patients. Furthermore, ADC Therapeutics (an exited portfolio company) and Sobi received European Commission approval of ZYNLONTA for the treatment of relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.
Clinical updates from our startup portfolio
Artios initiated a Phase 2 study of Polθ inhibitor ART4215 in combination with PARP inhibitor talazoparib in BRCA deficient breast cancer, and a Phase 2 study of ATR inhibitor ART0380 plus gemcitabine in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.
Amplia announced dosing the first patient in its Phase 1b/2a ACCENT study of the FAK inhibitor AMP945. |
Monte Rosa Therapeutics announced dosing the first patient in its Phase 1/2 study of MRT-23569, a GSTP1-directed molecular glue degrader, for the treatment of MYC-driven tumours. |
iOnctura initiated a Phase 1b pancreatic cancer study of its next-generation autotaxin inhibitor IOA-289. |
STORM Therapeutics announced dosing the first patient with oral METTL3 inhibitor STC-15 in a solid tumour Phase 1 study. |
Spotlight on BioCaptiva
Cancer Research Horizons made a follow-on investment into BioCaptiva as part of the company’s £2.2m seed extension round in June 2022. BioCaptiva has developed a novel DNA capture device (BioCaptis) aimed at addressing a key market challenge for liquid biopsy technologies — low input levels of cell-free DNA (cfDNA).
By combining apheresis with the BioCaptis technology, its liquid-biopsy system captures cfDNA directly from small volumes of plasma that are impractical to process using existing methods. Employing apheresis to improve early cancer detection delivers quantities of cfDNA comparable to over 100 individual blood draws from one patient, providing greater quantities of input DNA. The approach championed by BIOCAPTIVA also promises to open new avenues for more comprehensive genome analysis, and lead to more precise and enhanced clinical decisions.
BioCaptiva plans to use the investment from the additional seed funding round to fund the first-in-human trials with BioCaptis and prepare for initiating regulatory trials in early 2024.
Spotlight on
BioCaptiva
Cancer Research Horizons made a follow-on investment into BioCaptiva as part of the company’s £2.2m seed extension round in June 2022.
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Leveraging Cancer Research Horizons investment
To leverage our investments, our Ventures team routinely seeks to co-invest with like-minded early-stage investors. Alongside steps taken to strengthen our investor network during the financial year, in January 2023 we were successful in our application to become one of Innovate UK’s investor partners in their Future Economy Investor Partnerships programme. Innovate UK is part of the UK government’s Research and Innovation funding agency for investing in research and science. This programme brings together Innovate UK’s use of grant funding, and investor partners’ aligned funding and expertise. The initiative’s aim is to stimulate research and development in micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, while accelerating equity investment into those companies so that they can grow more rapidly through innovation.
Becoming an investor partner means our Ventures team will work with Innovate UK and other investor partners to consider innovative businesses that apply for grant funding alongside its investment. The other investor partners include venture capital funds, corporate investors, business angel groups and social impact investors, coming from across the UK, Europe and the US.
