While Amazon’s drone delivery service is tested in Cambridge at its UK Research Centre, Bidwells latest research finds that the city’s ‘last mile’ delivery centres – the urban bases that many online retailers rely on – are being crowded out by competing uses.

Bidwells latest industrial space research for the industrial and logistics sector finds competition from higher value uses is taking its toll on industrial space stock levels in Cambridge, writes Sue Foxley of Bidwells.

There is clearly increasing pressure from the online retail industry for same-day and next-day delivery for them to be able to complete in a challenging retail environment. This is driving intense demand for locations for distribution activities near to major conurbations.

Research by MSCI published in July showed this to have a particularly marked impact in London, The Outer London area was found to have the largest proportion of assets in the top total return performing deciles. The South East and Eastern region in second and third places. This aligns with our own research.

Cambridge has a large and rapidly growing population, which characterised by a relatively wealthy catchment area, reflecting its business sector profiles. 

The city is also challenged by severe development constraints due to the historic nature of the city itself but also protection across much of its surrounding greenspace.

These physical constraints are compounded by the market pressures of the locations which is crowding out other uses. Despite industrial rents in Cambridge reaching record highs during the first half of 2018, competition from higher value uses is taking its toll on stock levels.

Office rents in Cambridge have risen strongly over recent years achieving historic highs at the end of H1 2018.

Furthermore, residential values have risen sharply, driving the loss of many industrial sites to residential development, including many on the edge of the urban areas with value to the distribution sector in particular.

These market pressures have resulted in Cambridge losing approximately a third of their respective industrial floorspace to alternative uses over the last 15 years.

This clearly presents a challenge for the ever-burgeoning online retail sector in Cambridge and beyond.

Global consumer goods brand Unilever and Cambridge solar technology pioneer Azuri Technologies have joined forces to transform life for millions of people living off grid in Africa.

Prime Minister Theresa May showcased the alliance on her recent trip to Africa and the companies have subsequently told Business Weekly that they have huge plans to shine a light on a whole new way of existence in African countries.

The PM announced more than £300m worth of deals for UK companies in Africa but beyond the commercial gloss, Unilever and Azuri have spelled out what their alliance means from dawn till dusk for families living in some of the poorest conditions on the planet.

The partnership is designed to accelerate delivery of pay-as-you-go solar home lighting to millions of off-grid households in Kenya, leveraging Azuri’s £16 million investment in Kenya to date and access to a further £16m in debt funding in the region.

Azuri CEO Simon Bransfield-Garth said: “Azuri is providing solar power to some of the 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who don’t have access to electricity. 

“Using Azuri’s technology, customers can pay for solar power as they use it and get access to some of the modern capabilities, from LED lighting, through to solar television and satellite content.

“Unilever is one of the longest standing companies in Africa and has enormous countrywide reach and many instantly recognisable household brand names such as Liptons tea and OMO washing powder. 

“Azuri has partnered with Unilever to co-brand its solar home lighting system with Unilever’s famous Sunlight brand in order to bring the latest solar power to rural consumers across Africa.

“The partnership is starting in Kenya, where Unilever has more than 67,000 smallholder traders that can provide a route to deliver solar power to consumers and in addition provide support to those consumers. 

“The partnership will enable many, many more consumers get access to solar power and technology that can improve their lives.” 

Looking long term, Bransfield-Garth sees huge opportunity for the partners and for the people at the sharp end of the power play. He said: “The African sub-continent is in a phase of rapid growth and development and this comes at a time of new innovation and technology – be it the internet, smartphones or artificial intelligence. 

“Azuri, with its innovative and pioneering approach, is ideally placed to work with counterparts right across the continent in order to deliver the benefit of this technology to million and millions of consumers.”

Azuri was founded in 2012 in Cambridge as a small startup with a handful of engineers developing and designing solar solutions based on mobile technology. 

Now the business is one of the leading providers of pay-as-you-go solar power lighting and TV systems, with locally-based teams working in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Nigeria. 

Azuri now has some 80 staff and has created over 5,000 new jobs via partner companies to sell, support and maintain solar home systems.

Bransfield-Garth accompanies the Prime Minister on her historic African sortie. 

Africa is a young, vibrant and dynamic continent growing at an extraordinary rate. By 2050, one in four people on the planet will be African – a quarter of the world’s consumers. This represents a transformational opportunity for UK firms to increase trade with African countries, May said.

During the visit deals worth more than £300 million have been agreed within a variety of sectors, creating close to 3,000 jobs across Africa.  

The PM said: “The deals being announced demonstrate the already close trade and investment links between the UK and African countries and the potential that exists for other UK businesses to make the most of the growing opportunities on the continent.

“With a shared passion for entrepreneurship, technology and innovation, now is the time for UK companies to strengthen their partnerships with Africa to boost jobs and drive prosperity both at home and overseas.”

As part of the visit, the Prime Minister also announced that an agreement with the Southern African Customs Union and Mozambique means the UK will be ready to carry over the EU’s Economic Partnership Agreement as soon as the EU deal no longer applies to the UK. 

This represents the most advanced statement of progress yet of around 40 existing EU trade agreements that the UK is rolling over. The UK-Africa trade relationship is already worth more than £31 billion.

• PHOTOGRAPH (top of page): Justin Apsey, managing director East Africa at Unilever with Azuri CEO Simon Bransfield-Garth

Cambridge life science innovator Biosceptre has announced trials of a peptide vaccine that offers hope to patients suffering some of the most lethal types of cancer.

The Phase 1 clinical trial has been designed by a leading oncologist in New York and the first patient has already been enrolled – in Australia.

Now Babraham-based Biosceptre – chaired by life science entrepreneur Sir Greg Winter (pictured) – is stepping up the enrolment process to accelerate progress through the key trial stages. As well as its state-of-the-art Cambridge UK facilities, the company has a similar flagship in Sydney.

The Phase 1 trial will accept broad cancer indications with primary focus on prostate and lung cancer patients who are refractory to, or have refused, standard of care treatment. Breast, colorectal and other cancer patients will also be accepted.

The peptide vaccine is branded BIL06v and the first patient was recruited at the Sydney Adventist Hospital under treating physician and Principal Investigator Associate Professor Gavin Marx.

Other clinical sites will be added in the coming months and competitive recruitment for the minimum six-month treatment is anticipated to proceed to the full cohort of 20-30 patients within 12 months.

The trial has been designed by Dr Bob Li, attending oncologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Dr Li is a recipient of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Young Investigator Award and the American Association for Cancer Research Young Investigator Translational Cancer Research Award.

The trial will be overseen by Biosceptre’s chief medical officer Professor Paul De Souza, who is Foundation chair of Medical Oncology, School of Medicine, at Western Sydney University and Honorary Professor of the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney.

Biosceptre’s BIL06v therapy is a peptide protein conjugate vaccine, administered in the presence of an adjuvant. Primary endpoints include evaluation of safety and immunogenicity, with secondary endpoints including dose limiting toxicity and/or maximum tolerated dose as well as recommended Phase II dose. Disease control rate at 12 weeks as well as progression free survival will also be examined.

Exploratory endpoints will include quality of life and overall survival, as well as serum tumour biomarkers and cellular immunogenicity. Archived tissue will be screened for expression of the nfP2X7 target.

Biosceptre acting chairman Sir Greg Winter said: “The relationship between P2X7 and cancer is a field of increasing research interest and supports the potential of targeting nfP2X7 in human cancer in the clinic.”

CEO Gavin Currie added: “It is a long journey from discovery of a novel target like nfP2X7 in oncology to eventually putting a first-in-class drug into the clinical setting, and I am delighted that all the hard work has come to fruition. “We are very optimistic that this trial will meet its primary endpoints, a critical inflection point for value for our shareholders.”

The provision of business funding reliefs has been recognised by UK governments in recent years as a valuable means of incentivising investment into technology companies, writes Tim Shaw, associate partner with Ensors Chartered Accountants.

The UK provides three tax-advantaged schemes; the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), the closely related Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and the Venture Capital Trusts (VCT) regime.

EIS enables individual investors to invest in small and medium-sized companies (broadly with fewer than 250 employees and £15 million of assets for standard qualifying companies) in return for generous tax reliefs. By contrast, SEIS was intended to be a temporary relief but has been retained to provide relief for relatively small-scale investments – companies can raise a maximum of £150,000 under SEIS and an individual investor can claim total relief of no more than £100,000 per tax year.

EIS’s headline incentives are that an investor can subscribe for up to £1 million (per tax year) of newly issued shares in a qualifying company in return for a 30 per cent non-repayable Income Tax credit and a potential exemption from Capital Gains Tax when the shares are sold; in both cases the EIS shares must be held for at least three years.

There is a further Income Tax relief for investment losses if the investee company fails. It is also possible for investors to defer capital gains arising on the disposals of other assets by reinvestment into qualifying EIS shares.

Changes introduced from 2015 have limited the scope of EIS for many investments. For instance, investment has been limited, in general, to companies whose first commercial sale was within the last seven years. 

The total permitted amount of EIS investment has been reduced to £12 million for standard qualifying companies and non-EIS shareholders have been blocked from subscribing for new EIS shares going forward, even if the company itself meets the qualification criteria.

Conversely, more recent changes have made EIS more generous for knowledge-intensive companies (the employee limit is increased to fewer than 500), both in terms of how much a qualifying company can raise (total investment limit of £20 million) and the period over which it can first raise EIS investment (up to 10 years after the first commercial sale) and how much the individual can invest (up to £2 million).

This applies to shares in companies carrying out a high level of innovation, are creating IP they intend to exploit or where at least 20 per cent of the workforce is “skilled”.

The SEIS rules give Income Tax relief equal to 50 per cent of the amount of the subscription price of the qualifying shares. Gains on the disposal of qualifying SEIS shares are exempt from UK Capital Gains Tax provided that the shares sold have been held for three years.

A capital gains’ reinvestment exemption relief also exists within the SEIS regime so that where an individual realises a capital gain, and reinvests all the gain into acquiring SEIS shares, half of the gain will not be taxable.

If the shares are sold within three years from issue, all the SEIS reliefs will be clawed back. A company cannot issue shares under the SEIS rules if it has already issued shares under the EIS rules or has received investment from a VCT.

Under both EIS and SEIS rules, in order for the favourable tax reliefs to be available it is normally necessary for both the shares to be held for at least three years from issue and for the investor and the investee company to meet the necessary conditions throughout this period – this latter point is often overlooked.

As a few words of caution, the above is just a very high-level summary of EIS and SEIS.  Both reliefs are subject to a myriad of rules and complexities. For instance, in general, employees and some directors cannot benefit from these reliefs and shares cannot be issued before the cash investments are received – a common problem.

Whilst EIS and SEIS offer generous tax reliefs, HMRC often interprets the rules to the letter and many proposed investments fail to obtain relief due to unfortunate technical oversights or unintentional errors.

Professional advice both at the time of investment and going forward is essential to ensure that reliefs are obtained and are not subsequently clawed back.

A VCT is an investment company whose shares are listed on a European regulated market. It is required to invest in and maintain a portfolio of qualifying trading companies. 

The investment is made by the investor into the VCT itself and this differs from EIS/SEIS in that, here, the investment is being made into an investment vehicle as opposed to the investee company. VCT is therefore a more passive investment, albeit one in which the risk of investment in specific companies is diluted.

Income Tax relief at 30 per cent can be claimed on the investment made into the VCT, limited to a maximum investment of £200,000 per tax year. This relief will be clawed back if the VCT shares are sold within five years of the date of issue. 

Dividends paid by the VCT on qualifying investments are not taxable and gains made on the disposal of VCT shares are eligible for exemption from Capital Gains Tax (there is no minimum holding period).

Similar to EIS and SEIS investments, there are many rules which must be met to enable the favourable VCT tax reliefs to be available and professional advice should be taken before making any investment in a VCT.

• For more information call Tim on 01223 428314 or email: tim.shaw [at] ensors.co.uk

A founding father of the Cambridge biotechnology cluster says its leading innovators have come late to the life science funding feast in global terms, despite recent successes.

Having missed out in many respects on the primary party, Cambridge biotechs are set for a second coming with the world’s leading Big Pharma companies now camped on Cambridge’s doorstep. 

Their presence should ensure that the city’s bio brainpower is finally rewarded in a new wave of investments focused on a larger slice of the cake rather than scattered crumbs, says Dr Andy Richards.

Dr Richards helped Sir Chris Evans take Cambridge from a bio backwater onto the international stage. As chair of a stable of UK life science thoroughbreds, he is well placed to put recent perceived glories into proper perspective.

In the space of seven days recently, Cambridge ophthalmic gene therapy business Quethera Ltd was bought for $109m by Japanese company Astellas Pharma Inc; Artios Pharma raised $84m Series B to progress DNA cancer solutions and Abzena was sold in a near-$44 million acquisition to Astro Bidco Limited, a new company wholly-owned by the WCAS Fund in New York.

Dr Richards told Business Weekly: “The Abzena deal was perhaps not surprising but ultimately disappointing from where they were in the early days.”

On that particular transaction, another biotech entrepreneur contacted Business Weekly to say: “In reality Abzena had raised £120m and were sold for £35m.”

Dr Richards added: “The Abzena deal does say something about how UK public investors drive companies in our sector towards particular business models in contrast to how they get pushed on Nasdaq. Horizon Discovery has experienced some of the same pressures I suspect.”

He added: “The Artios financing was excellent but there have been quite a few of these and not just Cambridge specific – look at Orchard Therapeutics in London – and, of course, big rounds are the norm in Boston Massachusetts which is where we should be looking to compete. Quethera was another good outcome.

“I would argue that we have the quality of companies, science and management in many cases to warrant these larger rounds but have been slower in realising these than we should have been.  

“In terms of where the money has been coming from, for a good few years now the money coming into Cambridge life science has been much more international than home grown. We did a comprehensive analysis at Babraham for Babraham Campus companies and it was quite revealing. 

“The profile of Cambridge life science companies is such that all the major pharmaceutical companies are hunting here and on the ground.”

Dr Richards, as chairman, is helping to hatch another exciting Cambridge startup – Closed Loop Medicine – which is still in stealth but which would appear to have huge potential. 

Closed Loop was established at the interface of the UK’s leading biotech, genomic and digital technology companies. It uses the concept of convergence to create new closed-loop models of care, integrating real-time feedback to optimise outcomes for patients. What cannot be hidden is that the business has a genuinely dynamic and accomplished team headed up by Hakim Yadi and Paul Goldsmith.

The concept has been incubating  for some time and is now up and running with seed investment from a set of Cambridge Angels along with Longwall Ventures. Another funding round is in the hatching, Business Weekly understands.

Dr Richards is one of the most successful life sciences entrepreneurs in the UK. He has founded and scaled many innovative biotech and healthtech companies, including Chiroscience, Vectura, Arakis, Arecor, Congenica, Abcodia, Ieso and Silence Therapeutics. 

He also sits on the board of Cancer Research Technology and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is an advisor to Cambridge Innovation Capital and the UCL Closed Loop co-founder Dr Paul Goldsmith is a consultant physician with a triple first from Cambridge and a clinical scholarship from Oxford. His PhD utilised the simplicity of developmental biology to understand complex human disease. 

He went on to co-found and help build two drug discovery and two digital health companies. He also has extensive NHS systems and strategic experience, including Clinical Networks, Vanguard and Clinical Senate roles.

Dr Yadi is the founding CEO of the Northern Health Science Alliance Ltd (NHSA) and is at the forefront of establishing multi-partner collaborations between healthcare systems and leading industry from medtech to pharma, biotech and digital health companies. He holds a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Cambridge. 

Dr Yadi was awarded an OBE for services to healthcare technology and the economy in the 2017 New Years Honours List.

Fellow founder Dr David Cox has built a career operating on the boundaries between healthcare, technology and business. He practiced medicine for several years before pursuing a management career, gaining experience first at McKinsey & Co. 

For several years now he has focused on the growing promise of digital health, starting his own health app company, and then moving on to help grow other startups in senior management positions. He is a mentor on the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Training programme.

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Andy Richards

Cambridge-based digital health technology business Healthera is set to triple its commercial force in the UK after raising £3 million Series A cash – and has its sights set on future global expansion.

Healthera connects patients to a platform of hundreds of pharmacies and NHS GPs, allowing them to order and track prescriptions, access clinical services and monitor their medication intake in one digital end-to-end solution.

CEO and co-founder Quintus Liu told Business Weekly that the platform has ample capability to be further refined and could be scaled massively as traction with patients and healthcare professionals is continuing to grow at a rapid pace.

The startup, until now, has been funded by Cambridge Enterprise, the university’s commercialisation arm, bolstered by NHS and government cash. 

The Series A is a gamechanger on the growth roadmap: It was led by Accelerated Digital Ventures (ADV) with follow-on participation from Cambridge Enterprise, Future Care Capital and existing angel investors.

Liu said the vision for Healthera was to build the first smart platform to digitise health management for the 98 per cent of patients, pharmacies and GPs who still rely on manual and inefficient methods of interaction. 

The platform’s initial focus is on helping patients to order repeat prescriptions (used by half of all adults), but the enormous dataset also provides potential for expanding into OTC’s, data-led primary care, and real-world pharmaceutical insight. 

“This is in contrast with other solutions which are either standalone online medicine sellers, or outdated software which require too much manual work to operate,” said Liu. He co-founded the business in 2015 with fellow University of Cambridge alumni Martin Hao, the managing director, and Jin Dai (VP Product) during their last year of study. 

Progress has been head-spinning. Since commercially launching in late 2017, Healthera now connects over 800 pharmacies and GPs, tens of thousands of patients, and is partnering with NHS local authorities (CCG). Its app is listed on the official NHS App Library.

Further ratification of its services and potential came from another NHS organisation last week when  Healthera partnered with NHS Dartford Gravesham and Swanley Clinical Commissioning Group (DGS CCG) to provide mobile-based repeat prescription ordering and tracking to over a hundred thousand patients.

Liu says: “Over the past months, Healthera’s platform has won the confidence of the market as shown by the speed of adoption among patients, healthcare professionals, and NHS organisations. With the Series A investment we will be accelerating our expansion into every household, and soon, multiple healthcare verticals.”

Martin Hao added that Healthera would likely “triple the size of its commercial force” in order to gain market leadership. 

The confidence of the investors was vocalised by Mike Dimelow, chief investment officer at ADV. He said: “Repeat medical prescriptions are used by millions in the UK each year and many more across the world. 

“Paperwork, physical appointments and lack of focus on patient’s needs make this an all too often inefficient process for all involved. Healthera is tackling this by bringing clinical services, prescription and medicine intake monitoring in one consumer platform which has seen rapid uptake from pharmacists and patients since launching in Q4 2017. We expect to see this user base grow even more rapidly as the team expands across the UK and beyond towards a time of effortless prescription for those in need.”

NHS engagement

Half of all UK adults take repeat prescriptions to manage their conditions. Yet, re-ordering prescriptions monthly is notorious for being a complex, expensive and time-consuming process, usually involving paperwork and manual labour for pharmacies, GP staff and patients. 

This is all about to change for the Dartford Gravesham and Swanley region, where the nationally-popular free Healthera app has been commissioned by the CCG as the exclusive digital service for patients to order their prescriptions.

In a matter of minutes, patients can place their prescription request and track its process on the Healthera app. Patients simply select their usual GP, select a pharmacy of choice, and order their prescriptions with a few taps. The orders will be reviewed by a team of NHS medicine coordinators (under a scheme called the Prescription Ordering Direct). Once the prescriptions are ready, the chosen pharmacy will notify the patient for collection or home-delivery.

As of September 3, the new approach by Healthera and DGS CCG will replace traditional methods of ordering through the pharmacy or GP. To facilitate the partnership, Healthera has integrated its system with the Prescription Ordering Direct workflow and offered its cloud platform solution to all pharmacies in the region, over 60 sites including national chains and independent pharmacies. This enables all 135,000 patients registered with 16 participating surgeries to digitally access any local pharmacy of their choice. 

Pharmacies will also have full visibility of the prescriptions ordering process and be able to instantly communicate with patients. 

Additionally, Healthera provides records and analytics to help patients manage their medication. A carer mode also enables ordering on behalf of family members.

Together Healthera and the DGS CCG aim to help the NHS reduce medicine wastage, eliminate congestion in the prescriptions hotline, and empower community pharmacies to play a more active role in the patient’s healthcare while reducing manual workload.

Quintus Liu said: “We are proud to help the NHS pioneer a new, digital infrastructure that could transform how millions of patients manage their medication. 

“By partnering with the DGS CCG, we’re able to support prescribing decision-making at large scale while providing a uniform, transparent medication experience to all patients and pharmacists in the region. 

“Because we can roll this out quickly across the DGS region, I am confident that Healthera’s service will quickly demonstrate further reductions in medicine wastage while increasing patient satisfaction.”

Luke Tate, Prescription Ordering Direct Manager of the DGS CCG, added: “As we extend the coverage of the successful POD programme, we wanted a solution that can be more convenient for patients, further reduce pressure on the NHS, and engage community pharmacies.” 

Tate added: “Healthera seems the obvious choice, as it’s the only NHS-approved solution which provides an elegant, transparent patient journey involving the POD and all key parties. We’re excited to roll out this innovative service and see the benefits brought to our region.”

The growth roadmap

Healthera recently switched its HQ to St John’s Innovation Centre in Cambridge and the founders have already grown the team to around 15 people; two of these are field sales specialists operating UK-wide from respective bases in Manchester and Birmingham. 

That commercial team is now set to grow substantially as a result of the Series A and Liu told me that Healthera eventually aims to duplicate this model in Continental Europe and Asia in territories where the prescription medicine system replicates or is similar to that of the UK.

“We have remained very focused since we started on rolling out our business model in a sensible, manageable and profitable manner concentrating first on the sizeable UK market. 

“But we are engaging all the time with bigger and bigger pharmacy chains and medical practices so the numbers we can reach with our technology are likely to grow substantially. This means further expansion across the UK and in mid-to-late 2019 we may look to take this model overseas.”

Liu doesn’t believe the founding trio had any special Eureka, Newton’s falling apple or a blinding light bulb moment as a trigger to founding the business.

“I’m sure Newton would have developed some theories on gravity long before the apple allegedly fell on him. We identified a problem for patients, pharmacies and GPs and set about providing a solution.

“We have tried to stay focused and grounded and to date this policy has paid off for Healthera. Of course we have ambitions for major growth but we want the business to be built sustainably and organically.  

“Our long-term ambition is to build a brand that is instantly and internationally recognisable. Not everyone eats Walls ice cream, for example, but they recognise the brand. That is our vision for Healthera.”

• PHOTOGRAPH: Healthera co founders Jin Dai, Quintus Liu and Martin Hao

Cambridge-based digital health technology business Healthera is set to triple its commercial force in the UK after raising £3 million Series A cash – and has its sights set on future global expansion.

Healthera connects patients to a platform of hundreds of pharmacies and NHS GPs, allowing them to order and track prescriptions, access clinical services and monitor their medication intake in one digital end-to-end solution.

CEO and co-founder Quintus Liu told Business Weekly that the platform has ample capability to be further refined and could be scaled massively as traction with patients and healthcare professionals is continuing to grow at a rapid pace.

The startup, until now, has been funded by Cambridge Enterprise, the university’s commercialisation arm, bolstered by NHS and government cash. 

The Series A is a gamechanger on the growth roadmap: It was led by Accelerated Digital Ventures (ADV) with follow-on participation from Cambridge Enterprise, Future Care Capital and existing angel investors.

Liu said the vision for Healthera was to build the first smart platform to digitise health management for the 98 per cent of patients, pharmacies and GPs who still rely on manual and inefficient methods of interaction. 

The platform’s initial focus is on helping patients to order repeat prescriptions (used by half of all adults), but the enormous dataset also provides potential for expanding into OTC’s, data-led primary care, and real-world pharmaceutical insight. 

“This is in contrast with other solutions which are either standalone online medicine sellers, or outdated software which require too much manual work to operate,” said Liu. He co-founded the business in 2015 with fellow University of Cambridge alumni Martin Hao, the managing director, and Jin Dai (VP Product) during their last year of study. 

Progress has been head-spinning. Since commercially launching in late 2017, Healthera now connects over 800 pharmacies and GPs, tens of thousands of patients, and is partnering with NHS local authorities (CCG). Its app is listed on the official NHS App Library.

Further ratification of its services and potential came from another NHS organisation last week when  Healthera partnered with NHS Dartford Gravesham and Swanley Clinical Commissioning Group (DGS CCG) to provide mobile-based repeat prescription ordering and tracking to over a hundred thousand patients.

Liu says: “Over the past months, Healthera’s platform has won the confidence of the market as shown by the speed of adoption among patients, healthcare professionals, and NHS organisations. With the Series A investment we will be accelerating our expansion into every household, and soon, multiple healthcare verticals.”

Martin Hao added that Healthera would likely “triple the size of its commercial force” in order to gain market leadership. 

The confidence of the investors was vocalised by Mike Dimelow, chief investment officer at ADV. He said: “Repeat medical prescriptions are used by millions in the UK each year and many more across the world. 

“Paperwork, physical appointments and lack of focus on patient’s needs make this an all too often inefficient process for all involved. Healthera is tackling this by bringing clinical services, prescription and medicine intake monitoring in one consumer platform which has seen rapid uptake from pharmacists and patients since launching in Q4 2017. We expect to see this user base grow even more rapidly as the team expands across the UK and beyond towards a time of effortless prescription for those in need.”

NHS engagement

Half of all UK adults take repeat prescriptions to manage their conditions. Yet, re-ordering prescriptions monthly is notorious for being a complex, expensive and time-consuming process, usually involving paperwork and manual labour for pharmacies, GP staff and patients. 

This is all about to change for the Dartford Gravesham and Swanley region, where the nationally-popular free Healthera app has been commissioned by the CCG as the exclusive digital service for patients to order their prescriptions.

In a matter of minutes, patients can place their prescription request and track its process on the Healthera app. Patients simply select their usual GP, select a pharmacy of choice, and order their prescriptions with a few taps. The orders will be reviewed by a team of NHS medicine coordinators (under a scheme called the Prescription Ordering Direct). Once the prescriptions are ready, the chosen pharmacy will notify the patient for collection or home-delivery.

As of September 3, the new approach by Healthera and DGS CCG will replace traditional methods of ordering through the pharmacy or GP. To facilitate the partnership, Healthera has integrated its system with the Prescription Ordering Direct workflow and offered its cloud platform solution to all pharmacies in the region, over 60 sites including national chains and independent pharmacies. This enables all 135,000 patients registered with 16 participating surgeries to digitally access any local pharmacy of their choice. 

Pharmacies will also have full visibility of the prescriptions ordering process and be able to instantly communicate with patients. 

Additionally, Healthera provides records and analytics to help patients manage their medication. A carer mode also enables ordering on behalf of family members.

Together Healthera and the DGS CCG aim to help the NHS reduce medicine wastage, eliminate congestion in the prescriptions hotline, and empower community pharmacies to play a more active role in the patient’s healthcare while reducing manual workload.

Quintus Liu said: “We are proud to help the NHS pioneer a new, digital infrastructure that could transform how millions of patients manage their medication. 

“By partnering with the DGS CCG, we’re able to support prescribing decision-making at large scale while providing a uniform, transparent medication experience to all patients and pharmacists in the region. 

“Because we can roll this out quickly across the DGS region, I am confident that Healthera’s service will quickly demonstrate further reductions in medicine wastage while increasing patient satisfaction.”

Luke Tate, Prescription Ordering Direct Manager of the DGS CCG, added: “As we extend the coverage of the successful POD programme, we wanted a solution that can be more convenient for patients, further reduce pressure on the NHS, and engage community pharmacies.” 

Tate added: “Healthera seems the obvious choice, as it’s the only NHS-approved solution which provides an elegant, transparent patient journey involving the POD and all key parties. We’re excited to roll out this innovative service and see the benefits brought to our region.”

The growth roadmap

Healthera recently switched its HQ to St John’s Innovation Centre in Cambridge and the founders have already grown the team to around 15 people; two of these are field sales specialists operating UK-wide from respective bases in Manchester and Birmingham. 

That commercial team is now set to grow substantially as a result of the Series A and Liu told me that Healthera eventually aims to duplicate this model in Continental Europe and Asia in territories where the prescription medicine system replicates or is similar to that of the UK.

“We have remained very focused since we started on rolling out our business model in a sensible, manageable and profitable manner concentrating first on the sizeable UK market. 

“But we are engaging all the time with bigger and bigger pharmacy chains and medical practices so the numbers we can reach with our technology are likely to grow substantially. This means further expansion across the UK and in mid-to-late 2019 we may look to take this model overseas.”

Liu doesn’t believe the founding trio had any special Eureka, Newton’s falling apple or a blinding light bulb moment as a trigger to founding the business.

“I’m sure Newton would have developed some theories on gravity long before the apple allegedly fell on him. We identified a problem for patients, pharmacies and GPs and set about providing a solution.

“We have tried to stay focused and grounded and to date this policy has paid off for Healthera. Of course we have ambitions for major growth but we want the business to be built sustainably and organically.  

“Our long-term ambition is to build a brand that is instantly and internationally recognisable. Not everyone eats Walls ice cream, for example, but they recognise the brand. That is our vision for Healthera.”

• PHOTOGRAPH: Healthera co founders Jin Dai, Quintus Liu and Martin Hao

Cambridge UK online games trailblazer Jagex reveals that RuneScape, its flagship living games series, has become a $1billion lifetime revenue franchise after multiple years of player and subscriber growth. 

Now the company is unveiling a global outreach initiative to take its expertise to fresh millions by sharing its technology brilliance with third-party studios.

Jagex Partners, its third-party publishing initiative exclusively for live games, will unleash the full power of the new venture at Gamescom in Cologne next week as part of the its strategy to “become the home of living games.”

Jagex Partners will deliver live game publishing and operational services tailored specifically to the needs of third-party studios. Central to the offer is access to Jagex’s living games publishing suite of services – including user acquisition, digital marketing, analytic and audience insight systems, monetisation design, billing systems, customer support and community leadership.

Partner studios will also benefit from a proprietary tech platform that will integrate partner titles into Jagex’s live operations ecosystem – including player account management and authentication, monetisation, virtual currency management, distribution, hosting and player insight tools.

Jagex Partners will embrace PC, console and mobile titles and, in addition to Western markets, will provide access to China, the world’s biggest games market, thanks to Chinese parent company Fu Kong Interactive.

Phil Mansell, CEO, Jagex, said: “With RuneScape becoming a $1 billion franchise, Jagex has proven its credentials as a best-in-class living games publisher, running robust live game services at scale, all while nurturing and growing player communities. 

“Jagex is in a position of strength and prosperity and we feel it’s the right time to share that expertise and support other developers in bringing their games to market, assisting them to build and sustain strong communities and evolve their live games into living games.”

John Burns, SVP Publishing at Jagex, added: “Jagex is uniquely placed to deliver publishing and operational services for studios developing live games. We want to partner with developers who see their game growing into a franchise, attracting millions of players and become a living game that can exist for 15-plus years.

“Jagex Partners is so much more than a go-to-market publishing service – it’s the entire toolkit to launch and run a game in live operations, backed by years of experience. 

“We’re offering our expertise in services, retention and monetisation; our deep game analytics and player insight systems, our marketing automation, in addition to our 24/7 customer support and award-winning community leadership.”  

Jagex Partners is led by a dedicated and experienced publishing and services team, bringing senior live game professionals into the company to work with long-term Jagex talent.

Jeff Pabst has been appointed as VP, Third-Party Publishing. With a proven track record of success in growing online gaming businesses across North America, Europe and Asia, Jeff joins Jagex from NCSoft West, California. Jeff previously held senior commerce and publishing roles at Sega, Trion and Microsoft.

Simon Bull has become head of Third-Party Marketing. Prior to joining Jagex in 2017, Simon has 20 years’ experience in video game marketing with tenures at Electronic Arts, Trion Worlds and NCSoft.

Sarah Tilley has joined Jagex as head of Third-Party Product Management. Formerly of CCP, Sarah has more than seven years’ experience designing and running monetisation systems. 

• Studios wishing to discuss Jagex Partners can view more at www.jagex.com/partners or contact the team at partners [at] jagex.com

Autonomous vehicle software innovator FiveAI is scaling again in Cambridge and across the UK and bidding to raise fresh millions before the end of this year, Business Weekly can reveal.

CEO Stan Boland and one of the most highly qualified workforces ever witnessed in the world of automotive technology are on a mission to prevent US and Chinese businesses from controlling transport systems in the UK and Europe.

Boland’s team have just sent a fleet of suitably coloured light blue vehicles onto London’s roads, heavily armed with sensors, to collect data vital to putting the world’s safest driverless vehicles into action.

Business Weekly named FiveAI Startup of the Year in March 2017 and the company has already mushroomed from single figure headcount to more than 120 people across six UK sites, including Cambridge and the Millbrpok Testing Ground in Bedfordshire.

As we reported first last September, FiveAI clinched a cash haul of almost £27 million through a mix of Series A equity finance and a grant from the UK government which Boland said enabled the fledgling business to take on its deep pocketed US rivals head-to-head.

Boland had revealed to Business Weekly that it might take £50m to make real inroads on commercial testing of the technology and the fundraising to be revealed later this year will tell us more.

Locally, FiveAI is actively seeking  C++ software, research, test, autonomous vehicle and system software engineers for its Cambridge and Millbrook operations.

And Ben Peters, one of Boland’s loyal lieutenants, told Business Weekly today that FiveAI was on the cusp of genuine breakthroughs in its push for commercialisation.

He told me: “We’re already more than 120 people across our six UK sites and growing not only fast but strong – around 40 per cent of our people have PhDs in machine learning, AI, Physics, Maths and Engineering. 

“We’ve been testing at Millbrook for the last 18 months, having progressed to testing on public roads a few months ago and are now ramping up activities in London in order to get a deep understanding of the domain in which we’ll operate. 

“We’ll be doing our first supervised user trials for our autonomous mobility service in London at the end of 2019. 

“The UK, and Europe as a whole, is a huge market for urban mobility services that promise to reduce congestion and improve the lives of inhabitants. 

“Europe also produces some of the best talent in the world capable of solving the challenges associated with delivering urban autonomy. We’re about configuring that talent behind our mission and winning in Europe – preventing US and Chinese firms from controlling our transport systems. 
“It’s going to take great people, great effort and a lot of capital but it’s important and we love a challenge!”

Boland and Peters believe this talent edge will prove crucial in the technology tussle with Google, Uber and Apple, for example, to launch the first safe and properly tested driverless cars on European roads.

Cambridge-based Artios Pharma, a leading DNA Damage Response company developing innovative treatments for cancer, has completed a stunning $84 million Series B financing with new global investors pitching into a significantly over-subscribed round.

Added to a $36m Series A in September 2016, it means the startup has reeled in $120m in under two years.

Fresh Swiss, French, Dutch and American money was all in the mix in a B-round led by Paris-based Andera Partners and LSP (Life Sciences Partners) in Amsterdam with participation by additional new investors Pfizer Ventures (US & worldwide) and Novartis Venture Fund (Switzerland and Boston US).

Artios’ existing shareholders Arix Bioscience, SV Health Investors, M Ventures, IP Group plc and AbbVie Ventures also pitched in.  

Based at Babraham Research Campus in the UK’s leading life science cluster, Artios is actively developing a pipeline of highly promising first-in-class DDR therapies identified from a global network of leading researchers in the field, including through Cancer Research UK. 

The inhibition of novel DNA repair targets like Polθ, in tumours where DNA damage response factors have been lost or down regulated, will lead to cancer cells being selectively killed without harming normal cells. This creates an opportunity for such products to be used both in monotherapy and in combination with existing and future cancer therapies. 

Artios CEO Niall Martin said: “We are delighted to welcome Andera Partners, LSP, Pfizer Ventures and Novartis Venture Fund to Artios and I would like to thank our existing investors for their continued support, which will help us develop and deliver our exciting DDR targeted therapies to cancer patients.

“This investor syndicate creates a very strong and committed shareholder base with a track record of supporting successful next generation companies. 

“The oversubscribed Series B fundraise is a strong endorsement of our world-leading development pipeline and reflects the opportunity for DDR to yield new breakthrough oncology products.”

The company was only founded by SV Health Investors in 2016 but is led by an experienced scientific and leadership team with proven expertise in DDR drug discovery. 

It has a unique partnership with Cancer Research UK (CRUK), and collaborations with leading DNA repair researchers worldwide, such as the National Centre for Biomolecular Research at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. 

Artios is building a pipeline of next-generation DDR programmes to target hard to treat cancers.

Cancers change their DDR pathways to allow mutations in their DNA so that they can evolve and adapt. This is what causes cancers to overcome many current therapies.

Targeting the remaining DDR pathways has been proven to selectively kill cancer cells through a concept known as ‘synthetic lethality’. This has been demonstrated with the recent success of PARP inhibitors such as Lynparza™ (olaparib; AstraZeneca) in treating a number of cancer types. DDR targeted products have the potential to be used in combination with other cancer agents to help prevent cancers from reoccurring.

Niall Martin played a key role in identifying Lynparza™ (olaparib) and other DDR inhibitors. Before joining Artios, Niall was a co-founder and COO at MISSION Therapeutics, a company focused on the commercialisation of expert research into ubiquitin pathways for the treatment of cancers and other diseases. 

During his time at MISSION, Niall helped establish the deubiquitylating enzyme (DUB) inhibitor platform, and raise more than £80 million in Series A and B financing.

Prior to that, Niall worked as Head of KuDOS Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, UK (a subsidiary of AstraZeneca) from 2008 to 2010, delivering a number of DDR projects into the AstraZeneca oncology pipeline, including ATR and ATM.  

His most notable achievement was establishing KuDOS’ programme against the DDR target PARP, which resulted in the discovery and development of Lynparza™ the first PARP inhibitor to market and a bolt-on second blockbuster drug from a prolific Cambridge stable.

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Artios Pharma CEO Niall Martin