£47.5 million fund for UK life sciences
pharmafile | May 29, 2014 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | European Investment Fund, Scottish Enterprise, Strathclyde Pension Fund, UK, epidarex, life sciences, lilly
A new fund has raised more than £47.5 million to help set up early-stage life science and health technology companies in the UK.
Run by venture capital firm Epidarex Capital, its investors include Eli Lilly, the European Investment Fund, Scottish Enterprise and Strathclyde Pension Fund.
There is also a substantial involvement from academia, with the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, and King’s College London, putting their hands in their pockets to add to the reserve.
This makes perfect sense, since commercial spin-outs from leading research universities are one of the main areas in which the fund will be looking to provide money.
Lilly said its investment – the drug company’s first into a UK pool of this kind – was a vote of confidence in the country’s research base.
“Lilly’s commitment to this pioneering Epidarex fund will increase collaboration across industry and academia to help speed the delivery of new treatments for unmet medical needs,” says Elaine Sullivan, the US firm’s vice president of global external R&D.
“This investment reflects Lilly’s strong belief in the excellence of life science research and development in the UK and will complement our own R&D and existing academic partnerships to help make life better for patients around the world,” she adds.
Epidarex, meanwhile, sees the venture as ‘significant validation’ of UK life science.
“All of our investors are committed to the fund’s goal of providing the scalable capital needed to commercialise the UK’s most innovative research,” says Epidarex managing partner Sinclair Dunlop.
Chris Mottershead, vice principal (research and innovation) at King’s, adds that such funds “provide the much-needed capital to carry translational research from the laboratory to the commercial market”.
The government is certainly keen to stimulate growth in the sector: last month it opened the new Office of Life Sciences, combining the functions of the Department of Health and the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.
Nicole Mather, formerly a director in Deloitte’s Healthcare and Life Sciences practice, is director of the new entity with a remit to “make the UK the best place to invest in life sciences research”.
The government has long professed to value life sciences, publishing a strategy for the sector and a policy on “increasing research and innovation in health and social care” a year ago.
In the latter, it drew the link between encouraging health research and the use of new technologies and their assistance in developing new, more effective treatments for NHS patients.
2011’s innovation, health and wealth initiative and the creation of the Academic Health Science Networks are also key landmarks in the government’s roadmap for life sciences.
And this year the launch of MedCity, designed to capitalise on the ‘golden triangle’ of research organisations between London, Oxford and Cambridge, represented another attempt by business, academia and government to foster life science growth.
Adam Hill
Related Content
Long COVID: 15 studies launched with £19.6 million government funding
The UK government has announced the launch of 15 new extensive studies, backed by £19.6 …
Drugmakers fined a record £260 million after 10,000% drug price increase
The UK’s competition authority has issued its largest ever fine of more than £260 million …
New targeted lung cancer treatment coming to UK under MHRA scheme
The MHRA has issued an Early Access to Medicines Scheme (EAMS) positive scientific opinion for …
