Noted Cambridge dontrepreneur Professor Chris Abell, who co-founded global life science company Astex among other corporate gamechangers, has died at the age of 62.

A biological chemist, Professor Abell was Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Professor of Biological Chemistry and Todd-Hamied Fellow of Christ’s College.

He was a pioneer in the field of fragment-based drug discovery, a successful entrepreneur, a founding director of Cambridge Enterprise and the university’s first Director of Postdoctoral Affairs.

A major focus of his highly interdisciplinary research in the Department of Chemistry was to understand the mechanisms of key enzymes and develop approaches to their inhibition, an approach that could lead to new treatments for diseases such as tuberculosis, cystic fibrosis and cancer.

The advances he made in fragment-based drug discovery led him to co-found Astex, a world-leading company in this area, in 1999. Fragment-based approaches are now adopted throughout the pharmaceutical industry and in many academic laboratories.

He also made major contributions to the development of microfluidic microdroplets as a platform for experimental science, with applications in cell biology, chemistry and materials science. This interest resulted in the co-founding of Sphere Fluidics in 2010 and Aqdot in 2013.

Chris was an undergraduate and postgraduate student at St John’s College, Cambridge, before conducting postdoctoral research at Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island. He was named a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2012 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2016.

Business Weekly chief executive Tony Quested interviewed Chris, a son of the soil, for our Cambridge Torchbearers book in 2015.

We wrote: “Brought up on a farm in Yorkshire, Chris Abell has proved true to his stock by ploughing fertile territory as one of Britain’s most successful life science entrepreneurs. 

“As co-founder of the globally respected Astex Therapeutics, Akubio, Sphere Fluidics and the exciting young venture, Aqdot – all from a springboard within academia – Professor Abell is also one of Cambridge University’s most assured ‘Dontrepreneurs.’

“His first foray into the world of business came In 1999 when he co-founded Astex, which used fragment-based drug discovery technology to discover cancer therapeutics, with Sir Tom Blundell and Harren Jhoti.

“In 2001, Chris co-founded Akubio, which developed biosensors for detecting bacteria and viruses; it was acquired by Inverness Medical Innovations in 2008. Then, in 2010, he co-founded Sphere Fluidics to develop microdroplet technology and two years later Aqdot, a company developing a new microencapsulation technology.

“Take a deep breath and consider this statistic: He has so far published more than 200 papers. And his research interests cover a broad church – vitamin and amino acid biosynthesis as targets for the rational design of antimicrobials; fragment-based approaches to enzyme inhibition; bacterial and plant riboswitches; reactions in microdroplets; and biological nanotechnology.

“Chris had a high work ethic from his youth. He says: ‘I was brought up on a farm in Yorkshire so understood how a business works from an early age. Forming my own business had been an ambition for several years before a real opportunity arose. My main motivation – frustration – was that I wanted to do more ambitious science than was possible with standard research grants.’

Chris was a Reader in the Department of Chemistry, Cambridge, carrying out research in mechanistic enzymology and was about 40 when he and his co-founders “made the decisive move” by forming Astex.

They secured funding from Abingworth and Oxford Bioventures (working together) and Chris observes: “We were fortunate to be starting a company in the late 1990s.

“The due diligence process certainly seemed to go on for a long time. Each successive fund raising was stressful. Fortunately for me, Harren as a founder and the first CEO dealt with most of the issues and many frustrations. It helped that we made some excellent early recruits and were very thoughtful about what we did.

“I have been particularly pleased by the way Astex has combined commercial success with high quality science, much of which has been published very well.

“There were several times in the evolution of the business when it seemed the fate of the company was too far outside areas I considered my comfort zone. These mainly related to financing.

“But the founders had each other to lean on when times got tough and we also received a lot of support from some key individuals in the industry as consultants and/or non execs.”

He acknowledged in our interview that, given his time again “there are numerous ways in which one might do things differently, but I am quite happy where I am now. 

“It would have been great to float Astex after six to eight years but the markets at the time precluded that.”

Looking at the prevailing environment in the UK for founding new enterprises, Chris believed attitudes and systems governing funding needed to be revised. 

He said: “I have found investors take a rather simplistic view about types of companies. For example, they do not seem sufficiently sensitive to different ‘service’ models. There also seems to be a shortage of investors who will come in at the £1-2 million range.

“There is often talk about whether enough of our entrepreneurs are sufficiently ambitious to scale their companies as we did with Astex. I disagree. 

“There appears to be a systemic weakness in the system and I think the problems are in part due to the funding mechanisms available. Most entrepreneurs I know do not lack ambition.”

• Professor Chris Abell (1957–2020): A digital condolences book has been set up at: www.remembr.com/professor.chris.abell

Picture credit – Royal Society

Cambridge-based AgriTech startup Herdsy has entered the US market with two deals set to be worth £1.4 million in the next five years.

The business is set to open a Texas office after managing to secure deals with that state and also with Oregon in just six weeks following help from the Department for International Trade.

Herdsy’s cattle collars monitor the health of cow herds using remote technology, helping farmers decide on the best time to send to market and increase profitability.

Supplying its technology to ranches in Texas and Oregon is a game-changing opportunity; the Texan market alone involves more than 12 million beef cattle. Oregon ranchers reckon the technology will keep wolves away from their cattle.

Herdsy will improve the all round decision-making process of the new US clients by providing ranchers with profit-focused, data-driven insights.

The UK company has developed a collar equipped with advanced sensors and machine learning artificial intelligence to measure biomedical and activity data, such as heart rate, weight gain, and grazing patterns.

This data provides livestock farmers with a complete overview of their cattle via the Herdsy website or app, alerting them in the event of atypical behaviour that could be detrimental to the value of the animal or its wellbeing. 

The information is then analysed against industry benchmarks, advising farmers on the ideal time to send animals to market, which in turn reduces time on farm per animal, costs whilst improving cash flow and profit margins.

Richard Hobson founded Herdsy in 2016 after coming up with the idea on his family’s farm. A former IBM software developer and accountant, Hobson was then mentored by his friend Dmitri Zaitsev, a Professor of Mathematics, to refine the technology.

After reaching out to the Department for International Trade for export advice, Herdsy accelerated its entry to the US market, securing the two partnerships in just six weeks. 

The business will co-develop a new product with the Texas Agriculture & Mechanical University, one of the biggest cattle names in the US. It has also gained a place with the Austin Technology Incubator to address one of the biggest issues facing the beef industry – sustainability.

Richard Hobson said: “When lockdown started, one of our orders to South Africa was put on hold and I immediately began thinking of how we were going to be able to get through this difficult time. 

“I realised with more people than ever having to work remotely that businesses all over the world were having to remodel, and virtual business meetings were necessary to do deals. So, I took the opportunity to set up video calls with high profile ranchers and partners in the United States and it worked!

“Having worked with the Department for International Trade for a few years, they were pivotal in our success in Texas. We managed to secure calls and introductions that otherwise could have taken us years to get.

“We saw the appetite for Herdsy when one rancher from Oregon contacted us to order over 5,000 collars to manage against wolf attacks.”

Herdsy started exporting in 2016 and is currently used in four countries. The business is now planning to open an office in Texas to assist its expansion into neighbouring US states and South America.

In the four quarters to the end of Q2 2020, the US was the UK’s largest trading partner with total trade between the two nations worth £221.6bn, an increase of £790m on the same period in the previous year.

Minister for Exports Graham Stuart said: “It is fantastic to see innovative companies such as Herdsy thriving in new markets, helping farmers on both sides of the Atlantic to monitor their animals and their profits more easily.

“This is a great example of the US’s strong appetite for British technology which will be boosted further when we strike a free trade agreement with the US.”

Last month, for the first time in over two decades, UK beef made its way to the US, marking a historic moment for UK farmers and food producers.

The UK is currently negotiating a free trade deal with the US set to create a host of export opportunities for British goods and services trade, supporting small businesses from all around the UK. The fifth round of negotiations between the two nations got underway on October 19.

Cambridge biotech innovator CellCentric has won $33 million of new funding to accelerate cancer trials leveraging its novel drug CCS1477.

Hong Kong-founded Morningside Venture Investments has injected the capital as trials of the technology enter a critical stage.

The CellCentric drug is in Phase I/II clinical trials to treat late stage prostate cancer, haematological malignancies as well as tumours with specific drivers.  

Morningside was swift to respond to encouraging early data to date so that CellCentric could expand its clinical evaluation programme. 

Over 10 hospital sites are active in the UK with clinical operations coming on board into the US and then Europe early in 2021. 

CCS1477 is formulated as a capsule taken orally. It has been in clinical trials for over a year. 

With the new funding, the evaluation will expand, investigating CCS1477 both as a monotherapy and in combination with standard of care agents for multiple specific applications. The aim is to achieve initial clinical proof of concept for more than one setting by Q2 2021.

Dr Will West, CellCentric’s CEO, said: “We are delighted with the continued clinical, commercial and investor interest in our first-in-class cancer drug, CCS1477. Many thanks to Morningside for their continued support, as we progress our clinical plans fully resourced.”

CellCentric investigated more than 50 potential epigenetic-related drug targets before focusing on the twin histone acetyl transferases p300/CBP. An earlier programme based on an arginine methyltransferase target was licenced to Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

Privately held CellCentric has UK headquarters at Chesterford Research Park, bases in Oxford and Manchester and multiple international operations and collaborations.

Cambridge-based Eagle Genomics, a pioneer in applying network science to biology – particularly linked to the microbiome – has closed $9 million in new scale-up funding. 

The UK technology business will use the investment to further develop the capabilities of its powerful AI-augmented, knowledge discovery platform and to drive further commercial expansion across Europe and the US.

The biggest names in global food, cosmetics, personal care & AgriTech are looking to Eagle’s AI-augmented, knowledge discovery platform to distil robust scientific evidence in support of marketing claims that its products have a significantly positive biological impact.

Environmental Technologies Fund (ETF) and a consortium of investors from across science, AI and analytics fields have provided this latest, strategically-important round of investment which will support Eagle Genomics’ high-growth ambitions. 

The consortium, led by Granpool Innovative Investments, includes bpd partners, Anatom Holding and Albert-László Barabási among others. 

Barabási is a world-leading network science expert, proactive investor in cutting-edge health innovation, and distinguished professor and director of Northeastern University’s Center for Complex Network Research.  Previously Eagle Genomics’ investors have backed trailblazers including Finch Therapeutics, Silicon Valley microbiome innovation company Pendulum Life and networked/personalised medicine leader Scipher Medicine.

Attracting such a high level of investment during a pandemic is testament to Eagle Genomics’ unique blend of microbiology and data science expertise, as well as its timely focus on driving powerful microbiome-related research. 

This is a field which is attracting the attention of global brands including Unilever, in response to huge and growing scientific interest in the role of microbes in maintaining health and wellbeing and promoting ecological renewal of the natural environment. 

The microbiome, the ecosystem of bacteria, fungi and viruses present in virtually all living organisms, is directly linked with health and is proven to be affected by the products we use and consume. 

Eagle Genomics’ ground-breaking knowledge discovery platform, the e[datascientist]™, harnesses AI to analyse complex genomic and microbiomic data at scale, delivering new insight and allowing enterprise brands to assess the viability, efficacy and safety of products.

Eagle Genomics’ solution is finding significant traction with major household brands, as these organisations strive to demonstrate the link between their latest products and microbiome health. 

Unilever has already used the platform successfully to distil credible scientific evidence to support claims about its Zendium toothpaste, which uses natural enzymes to boost the good bacteria in the mouth – the first substantiated microbiome-based claim recorded in a product launch.

Microbiome-related research is big business now. Bill Gates has claimed that “Understanding the microbiome is as big a breakthrough as anything else we will do in health over the next two decades.” Eagle Genomics is Microsoft’s first microbiome-focused partner. 

The substantial new funding will accelerate the development of Eagle Genomics’ award-winning platform to meet surging demand from enterprise companies looking to solve grand challenges such as the future of food, sustainable agriculture, wellness, and treatment of non-communicable diseases. The investment will also support the company’s global expansion plans. 

“We are on course to establish Eagle Genomics as a market leader at this transformative time and anchor our position as the preeminent platform vendor enabling the digital reinvention of life sciences R & D,” said Anthony Finbow, CEO at Eagle Genomics. 

“The microbiome is a megatrend that is evolving very quickly, and we are the forefront of associated discovery with our unique solution to address the enterprise data challenge. 

“We have our sights set too on other complex data challenges including CRISPR and quantum biological challenges, such as understanding the immune response more fully. The potential is phenomenal, and we are immensely grateful to our supporters for sharing our vision and helping us to scale at this pivotal time.”

Rob Genieser, Partner at ETF Partners, added: “We are delighted to see Eagle Genomics go from strength to strength, and to be able to support this crucial next stage of growth. 

“The timing could not be better, with the world’s focus on disease and accelerated innovation and ever more in-silico innovation.”

Speaking for the investor consortium, Albert-László Barabási, said: “Some investment opportunities leap out, and Eagle Genomics certainly falls into that category. 

“This is an immensely exciting science, and the appetite for the company’s unique and powerful platform is clear from the work Eagle Genomics is already doing with the likes of Unilever and the advanced discussions with some of the biggest companies in the world.”

Eagle Genomics is anchored at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and is a pioneer in applying network science to biology – particularly linked to the microbiome. 

Its award-winning AI-augmented knowledge discovery platform, e[datascientist]™, helps companies looking to innovate with next-generation food, personal care, cosmetics and agritech products, supported by science. The platform harnesses the latest graph technology and Microsoft’s advanced machine learning and cognitive services.

Eagle Genomics became Microsoft Genomics’ first microbiome partner in 2018. Today the fast-growing global business has operations in the world’s major centres for genomics and AI. 

Eagle Genomics works with five of the top 10 household and personal care companies in the world to create and launch new products which work in harmony with the human and ecological microbiome.

Cambridge entrepreneur and VC Dr Hermann Hauser is mobilising forces in the EU to create a €100 billion fighting fund to protect European life science and hi-tech businesses from being lured to the US or China and into foreign sovereignty where they could become vulnerable to asset stripping.

Dr Hauser felt it necessary to broaden his campaign to protect Arm Cambridge jobs and technology and associated UK bragging rights in light of its proposed $40bn acquisition by US giant NVIDIA. 

Not content with helping the UK government formulate policy on protecting Arm, he says the issue has now taken on much wider significance.

Dr Hauser joined the engine room of the European Innovation Council in July 2019, as exclusively reported in Business Weekly, and the EIC has propelled itself into the front line of this new sovereignty campaign.

Dr Hauser said: “This has become part of a much bigger issue of technology sovereignty and we have formed a task force at the EIC to address the issue of scaling our critical technologies in Europe so the companies behind them do not have to go to the US or China to become global players.

“America has just started a $100bn program for US technology independence and we are lobbying Europe for a €100bn fund to do the same for Europe.”

Dr Hauser reiterated a point he made to Business Weekly when he joined the EIC’s upper echelon: “Arm’s first CEO, Robin Saxby, has always maintained that when the fledgling business was trying to make ends meet in the early days it only got through the crisis thanks to the financial support of Europe’s Open Microprocessor Initiative.”

Despite the UK government’s headstrong rush towards Brexit, Dr Hauser remains utterly convinced that Britain needs to lean on the trading power of the EU as a buffer to being exploited by the super powers of American and China.

The European Innovation Council is continuing to leverage technology innovation across the EU to drive further significant investment opportunities.

With the UK government set to exit Europe, alienating China by banning Huawei from involvement in Britain’s 5G rollout and potentially backing the wrong horse in the fight for the White House, Dr Hauser says Britain needs all the help it can get to protect its business crown jewels from being lured away.

Clinical trials for the AstraZeneca-Oxford University coronavirus vaccine AZD1222 have today have been approved as safe to continue in the US by The Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The FDA reviewed all safety data from trials globally and concluded it was safe to resume. In recent weeks, regulators in the UK, Brazil, South Africa and Japan had confirmed that it was safe to progress the trials.

As part of the standard review process for trial safety events, a voluntary pause to vaccination across all global trials was triggered on 6 September to allow the examination of safety data by independent monitoring committees. It is not unusual that in large scale vaccine trials, some participants will become unwell, and every case has to be evaluated to ensure the careful assessment of safety.

Pascal Soriot, Chief Executive Officer of AstraZeneca, said: “The restart of clinical trials across the world is great news as it allows us to continue our efforts to develop this vaccine to help defeat this terrible pandemic. We should be reassured by the care taken by independent regulators to protect the public and ensure the vaccine is safe before it is approved for use.”

AZD1222 was co-invented by the University of Oxford and its spin-out company, Vaccitech. It uses a replication-deficient chimpanzee viral vector based on a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that causes infections in chimpanzees and contains the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein. After vaccination, the surface spike protein is produced, priming the immune system to attack the SARS-CoV-2 virus if it later infects the body.

Results from the late-stage trials are anticipated later this year, depending on the rate of infection within the communities where the clinical trials are being conducted. 

Data readouts will be submitted to regulators and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Rolling reviews of the vaccine programme have already begun in countries where this regulatory pathway has been established, providing regulators access to data as soon as they become available.

While trials are ongoing, AstraZeneca and Oxford University will continue to provide information to regulators, study investigators and participants according to clinical trial and regulatory standards.

Cambridge, UK-headquartered AstraZeneca is a global, science-led biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialisation of prescription medicines, primarily for the treatment of diseases in three therapy areas – Oncology, Cardiovascular, Renal & Metabolism, and Respiratory & Immunology.

Business Weekly reported earlier this month that the US government is laying out around $1/2 billion in new funding for a rapidly advanced antibody drug combination from AZ. This deal for AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 Long-Acting AntiBody (LAAB) combination AZD7442 follows the treatment’s surge into Phase III clinical trials.

AZD7442 is a combination of two LAABs derived from convalescent patients after SARS-CoV-2 infection. Discovered by Vanderbilt University Medical Center and licensed to AstraZeneca in June, the LAABs were optimised by AstraZeneca with half-life extension and reduced Fc receptor binding.

The half-life extended LAABs should afford six to 12 months of protection from COVID-19.

Two Phase III clinical trials of AZD7442 are due to start by the end of October. One will enrol over 6,000 adults for the prevention of COVID-19 with additional trials enrolling around 4,000 adults for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infections.

AstraZeneca plans to supply up to 100,000 doses starting towards the end of 2020 and the US Government can acquire up to an additional one million doses in 2021 under a separate agreement.

LAABs mimic natural antibodies and have the potential to treat and prevent disease progression in patients already infected with the virus, as well as to be given as a preventative intervention prior to exposure to the virus. 

A LAAB combination could be complementary to vaccines as a prophylactic agent, e.g. for people for whom a vaccine may not be appropriate or to provide added protection for high-risk populations. It could also be used to treat people who have been infected.

Should the Phase III trials prove successful and AZD7442 become an approved medicine the company anticipates providing doses at commercial terms during and after the current coronavirus pandemic.

Cambridge-based Abcam, which supplies tools globally for life science research, has had a blockbusting response to its IPO on America’s NASDAQ technology exchange.

It initially realised $156.5 million in an American  depositary share offering then applied a generous dollop of icing onto an already generous slice of the cake by hauling in an extra $23.5m following exercise of over-allotment options by underwriters of its ADS exercise. That took the total amount raised to a nice round $180m.

Abcam’s UK share price recovered from an early dip to go slightly north to  1427p at the time of writing today.

Headquartered at Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Abcam now employs around 1,000 people worldwide. A pioneer in data sharing and ecommerce in the life sciences, its over-riding ambition is to be the most influential company in life sciences by helping advance global understanding of biology and causes of disease, which, in turn, will drive new treatments and improved health.

Shrewdly steered from Cambridge by CEO Alan Hirzel, Abcam swells the cluster’s growing cohort on NASDAQ. GW Pharmaceuticals, Bicycle Therapeutics and F-star have blazed the trail. Reports suggest that Horizon Discovery will soon swell those numbers, subject to hitting the right figures, and that Kymab could also be tempted and is just considering timing issues.

Abcam has grown impressively from relatively humble roots: The company was founded in 1998 by Jonathan Milner with co-founders professor Tony Kouzarides and David Cleevely, with the idea of making it easier for research scientists to buy antibodies across the web. It has a £3.08bn market cap and was among Cambridge’s first unicorn businesses.

Adrian Bennett, a Partner in the Assurance team at EY in the East of England, comments on how regional life sciences businesses are becoming increasingly attractive propositions for global investors. 

Over the last decade there has been a fundamental shift in the funding environment for UK life sciences businesses. 

New technologies and therapies, many fuelled by recent advances in genetics and cancer are attracting greater amounts of capital than ever before. 

Gone are the days when biotech for the most part looked like a poor relation to mainstream tech and even good biotech’s struggled to get funding. Much of the new capital is flowing from the US and for many aspiring life sciences businesses a US IPO is now seen as key milestone and preferred route for a large capital raise and to provide a value realisation opportunity for early investors. 

While there were UK-based US listed life sciences companies in the noughties, arguably the listing of Cambridge based GW Pharmaceuticals in 2013 on NASDAQ, marked the beginning of a new era for UK life science businesses. 

AIM and the Main Market are still an attractive option for the right type of business at the appropriate stage. For others, the depth of capital and investment appetite of US investors, offers a great opportunity. 

Our experience in the UK is that demand for US IPO’s remains high despite the impact of COVID-19 which hit in early March. While UK markets largely shut down in the period to end of June, the US experienced more of a pause for breath with lower levels of activity to Q2-2020. 

However, there were still 24 US IPOs in the healthcare sector in that period raising $6.7 billion (EY Q2-Global IPO Trends Report). While activity slowed in the period to Q2, the reality is that IPOs were put on ice for the market to settle rather than being abandoned and there has been a very strong rebound in global IPO activity in Q3 2020. 

Moreover, our observation is that while some individual companies in the sector have been negatively impacted, there are more winners than losers and on balance the current near-term outlook for the sector is buoyant.

Hammersmith-based Silence Therapeutics’ US listing went live in September 2020. In July, Cambridge-based Horizon Discovery announced its intention to pursue a US listing and in October Abcam filed a registration statement with the SEC for its proposed US IPO. 

While these three companies had listed previously on AIM, private companies are also listing their securities in the US without a prior UK listing, ignoring the UK markets in favour of the US. 

Another Cambridge-based company previously unlisted. F-Star effected its US IPO via a reverse merger into what was essentially a listed cash shell company.

At EY, our recent experience and discussions with companies is that the appetite of UK life sciences boards to plan for and execute a US IPO remains unchanged; indeed it is more surprising if it is not on the agenda. 

In addition, on both the West and East coast of the US, there are many companies preparing for an IPO and suitably experienced CFO’s and other C-suite executives are in short supply.

In our latest Global IPO Trends report (Q3-2020) we reported a number of key points. Q3 2020 was the most active third quarter in last 20 years by proceeds and the second highest third quarter by deal numbers.

Exchanges around the world posted 445 IPOs with proceeds totalling $95bn, which were 77 per cent and 138 per cent higher than Q3 2019, respectively. The stellar record by proceeds can be attributed to the most active August and September for IPOs in the last 20 years.

While IPO activity in EMEIA was sharply down year on year in the nine months to September 2020 with a 27 per cent fall in deal volume and a 24 per cent in proceeds, the Americas (dominated by the US) has had a very strong nine months with an 18 per cent increase in volume and 33 per cent hike in proceeds. Asia-pacific markets also performed strongly.

US IPO activity has been rapidly rising since June. Q3 2020 has significantly topped Q3 2019 by 124 per cent in number of IPOs and by 182 per cent in proceeds. 

In the Americas, healthcare companies continued to dominate in Q3 2020, accounting for 41 per cent of the IPOs, or 35 IPOs. However, technology companies still represented the most in proceeds, raising $16.4bn, which accounted for 50 per cent of total proceeds in Q3 2020. 

The largest single life sciences/healthcare IPO was Royalty Pharma which raised $2.6 bn on NASDAQ in June.

We expect markets to remain buoyant in Q4 but are advising companies to expect the unexpected, with ongoing uncertainties from the pandemic, China-US tensions, Brexit and the upcoming US presidential election expected to bring more volatility. 

That said we are expecting high levels of US IPO activity during US presidential election time due to a strong IPO pipeline built up during lockdown. 

In Europe, the Middle East and Africa likewise there is a strong pipeline of companies looking to take advantage of a transaction window later in the year.

Executing an IPO and the volume of different workstreams required is a significant undertaking for any businesses and careful planning is key. 

While listing in the US requires fewer accounting workstreams than in the UK, the scrutiny and challenge of reporting under US regulations, dealing with the SEC and the US litigation environment, means that for many UK life sciences business a US IPO will be a far more challenging project than listing in the UK. 

If you are thinking about whether to undertake an IPO or wondering what it might involve that we can help you better understand what you need to do to get ready in an IPO Readiness workshop. 

Given market volatility usually the best plan of attack is to have everything ready to take advantage of the window of opportunity and raise capital at short notice and at a better price. 

• Contact adrian.bennett [at] uk.ey.com if you would like to better understand the US or UK listing requirements or wish to organise a readiness workshop.

A former board member of one of the world’s biggest companies and White House climate change adviser has become chair of Xampla – a Cambridge University spin-out making plastic from peas.  

As Unilever’s chief sustainability officer, Jeff Seabright is credited with turning one of the world’s largest multi-nationals into a leader in implementing ‘green’ business credentials. 

Now he has gone from leading the sustainability operations of a company with an annual turnover of £50 billion across 155,000 staff in 190 countries and 400 household name products to a Cambridge technology startup with no sales, no products and 10 staff –  a major coup for Xampla!  

Climate change evangelist Seabright said: “We’ve known we’ve had a plastic crisis for a long time. But the biggest problem with plastic is also its biggest strength. 

“Its durability is great when you are protecting your product and a nightmare afterwards. The great conundrum has been to find a product that is cheap and durable without lasting forever on our planet.  

“Xampla is the most exciting innovation I have worked on. It has potential to have a positive impact on a global scale and is a ground breaking solution for industries in desperate need of natural alternatives to plastic. I am very pleased to be joining as chair at this critical time.” 

Seabright brings Xampla a raft of environmental and commercial expertise from a two-decades long career in sustainability.  

Before joining Unilever he was vice-president of Environment & Water Resources at Coca-Cola. He also led the Clinton White House Task Force on climate change. Seabright will champion Xampla’s sustainability efforts as it brings its natural plastic alternatives to market.  

Xampla has created the world’s first plant protein material for commercial use, aiming to eradicate the need for single-use plastics. Its bio-based materials, some made from pea protein, decompose naturally and fully without harming the environment. 
 
At the same time Xampla has become the UK’s first university spin-out to be accredited B Corp status.  

Developed over 15 years at the University of Cambridge, Xampla’s mission is to replace everyday plastics including bags, sachets, flexible packaging films, edible labels and microplastics used in homecare and personal products. Its first range of products will be launched in 2021.  

Xampla CEO Simon Hombersley said: “Jeff’s appointment has come at a pivotal point for the company. We are designing our products to meet the sustainability requirements of major companies like Unilever, and Jeff’s experience and leadership will ensure sustainability is our focus as we scale our business.”  

Dr Elaine Loukes, investment director at Cambridge Enterprise, the university’s commercialisation arm, added: “We couldn’t be more pleased by the news of Xampla’s continued success. Xampla originated at Cambridge University and we continue to work closely with the team. 

“Impact is of the utmost importance to us and Xampla is a prime example of a technology created at the University being developed through a commercial spin-out to make the world a better place.”

The COVID pandemic has highlighted the importance of access to finance for businesses and how relying solely on working capital inflows may not be enough in trickier trading times.

To their credit, the Government acted quickly and decisively in funding schemes and backing loans to support businesses, writes Ned Brown, Manager at PEM Corporate Finance.

However, this speed along with a lack of clarity caused a backlog of applications at the major high street banks who hadn’t the time to put the correct systems in place. 

This led to cash strapped businesses looking elsewhere for finance. Luckily, there is still large liquidity in the market, and at low interest rates. So, what else is out there?

Alternative Lenders

There’s a raft of alternative lenders in the market, offering quick and relatively simple access to finance for SMEs. There are specialist asset backed lenders, cash flow lenders, invoice discount specialists. The list goes on and it is often tricky to navigate.

They typically offer debt finance at a higher coupon rate than the high street banks. Many have now been accredited to provide the Government-backed loans and are certainly a viable and credible alternative to the high street banks.

Private Equity

Most of these funds are closed end, meaning that they need to deploy and return capital in a fixed period, usually 8 to 10 years. Often, the quicker they can deploy and return capital the better the IRR for the fund and its investors. 

Private equity funds are sitting on huge amounts of undeployed capital. This is beneficial to businesses as they’re under pressure to make investments and are looking at different ways of deploying this capital. 

Typically, private equity firms look for businesses making more than £1m EBITDA. We’ve seen this threshold being lowered for stand out businesses in attractive sectors. 

There is huge flexibility of investment structuring whether it be a minority or majority equity investment using high coupon loan notes.  We are also increasingly seeing variable structures designed to deal with the uncertainties of trading through COVID and Brexit.

This money can be seen as ‘expensive’ but private equity investors are very much aligned with business owners in making the business prosper, and to see an attractive return on its capital.

So, there may be operational and strategic advantages in partnering with the right investor.

In summary, there are a wide range of funding options for businesses in the current market. The difficulty is navigating the market and finding the best and most suitable option for the business.  

• You can call Ned Brown on 01223 728222 or email ned [at] pemcf.com (ned [at] pemcf.com )