Novacyt, the clinical diagnostics specialist which owns Lab21 in Cambridge, is evaluating potential acquisitions as part of an aggressive global growth strategy.

The company – dual listed in London and Paris – made the revelation after posting record revenue growth of 35 per cent for the year to December 31. It also slashed losses and posted a positive outlook for the rest of 2018.

Group CEO Graham Mullis said Novacyt delivered material financial and operational progress as it focused on integrating the transformational acquisition of Primerdesign made in May 2016. 

As a result, Novacyt delivered record sales growth of 35 per cent to just under @15 million – representing an improvement in gross margin from 55 per cent to 60 per cent and a narrowing of the EBITDA loss to €0.8m (2016 €2.3m) for the full year.

Novacyt ended the year with €4.3m (£3.8m) in cash following the payment of a deferred Primerdesign milestone, removal of the convertible debt facility with Yorkville and further deleveraging of the balance sheet following its AIM listing.

A divisional breakdown showed that Lab21 revenues were €6.7m (£5.8m), up 16 pr cent on 2016 at CER, reflecting the division’s continued expansion into new territories and the addition of new products.

During the year, Novacyt recruited 35 new employees, in particular adding commercial and manufacturing capacity to help facilitate accelerated revenue growth. It also completed the build and relocation to a new 15,000 sq ft manufacturing site in Camberley UK on target in September 2017 to support the planned growth of the group.

Mullis said: “We are delighted to report record organic sales growth across the group in 2017 in a year where we also successfully completed a pioneering dual-listing on AIM. 

“The group made significant progress, with a strong focus on commercial infrastructure expansion, manufacturing efficiency and development pipeline. 

“We have seen the full benefit of the acquisition of Primerdesign, which is now fully integrated, as well as delivering strong organic sales growth from NOVAprep® and Lab21. 

“We also launched our first CE-Mark approved molecular assay for the detection of the Zika virus and we plan to update shareholders on further product launches during 2018.

“The group is therefore well positioned in each of its core markets and the management team is focused on delivering the three strategic pillars of organic, acquisition and R & D-led growth.

“During 2018, the group will continue to build on the organic sales progress made in 2017 and is evaluating the potential for further acquisitions.

“Ultimately, we are aiming to move into EBITDA profitable trading during the year in order to become cashflow positive at the operating level.”

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Graham Mullis

California tech giant Oracle has splashed undisclosed millions on a second Cambridge company, snapping up Grapeshot in a deal that brings a windfall to a host of investors in the UK technology cluster.

Not least among them is IQ Capital whose two funds own around 31.5 per cent of Grapeshot’s shareholding. IQ merely announced the successful exit and said it would go into more detail later.

It is also boom time for Grapeshot co-founder and CEO John Snyder who is understood to be the second largest shareholder.

One investor told Business Weekly that while the purchase price was being kept under wraps, in terms of cash coming back into Cambridge for re-investment it was very good news.

It is seven years to the month since Oracle, headquartered in Redwood City but with a major presence at Cambridge Science Park, swooped for another tech company in the cluster – Datanomic. It declined to name the price in that deal as well.

John Snyder has not yet responded to a Business Weekly request for comment and Oracle are keeping details to the minimum, announcing merely that it had signed an agreement to acquire Grapeshot, which provides brand safety and pre-bid contextual solutions to over 5,000 of the world’s leading marketers.

Every month, over 38 billion programmatic ad impressions are enhanced using Grapeshot’s Contextual Intelligence Platform in dozens of languages and this number has grown well over 100 per cent year over year.

Oracle did add that the Grapeshot technology “will complement Oracle Data Cloud’s custom audience ability to improve marketing outcomes for our partners worldwide by adding the important dimension of context to Oracle Data Cloud’s expertise in audiences and measurement.”

The Oracle acquisition is a fabulous outcome for John Snyder, until recently a judge in the Business Weekly Awards.

Snyder has built Grapeshot into a global leader in contextual intelligence with offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, New York, London, Cambridge, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Sydney.

He has spent his whole career in the field of information retrieval and keyword technology, with a successful exit of the Muscat information search business in 1997 and a series of investments in hi-tech startups.

He holds a BA Honours degree from the University of Cambridge, where he remains a Fellow in Entrepreneurship at the Judge Business School.

Cambridge-based Bactest, which commercialised microbiological water testing products Speedy Breedy and Shepherd, has ceased trading.

The company is likely to go into liquidation on May 15. Insolvency practitioners at PEM in Cambridge are in the process of setting up meetings with creditors and shareholders to outline the financial position. Staff were summoned to a surprise meeting and made redundant.

PEM tells Business Weekly it hopes to find buyers for the core technology which has demonstrated demand from international clients.

Insiders reveal that while there should be enough money to pay the main creditors, it is unlikely any funds will be left to honour debts to shareholders.

They say that recent attempts to raise funds, either from existing shareholders or new investors, proved unsuccessful. Directors explored a potential sale of the company but to no avail so reluctantly concluded the business was no longer a going concern.

In all, Bactest has three products which it believes serve a clear market need. Significant clients use the products and rate them. 

According to a major player within the business, “the challenge has been that, despite the company’s best efforts, the sales cycle has proven to be impossibly long and we have been unable to bridge the funding gap between demonstrating a new technology and getting it accepted as a proven, fully commercialised product.”

Cambridge lighting technology pioneer Telensa has won two Queen’s Awards for Enterprise for its innovation and export successes.

In a record-breaking year, 23 East of England businesses spanning all manner of industries, hi-tech and life sciences segments were today unveiled as jewels in the crown for UK international trade.

Other hi-tech and life sciences stars in Cambridge honoured on the Queen’s birthday include cyber security innovator Darktrace, fraud-busting business Featurespace, lifestyle technology front runner Activeinsights, sensors sensation Zettlex, electronics components manufacturer Cambridge Integrated Circuits, medical trailblazer Endomag and industrial innovator Global Inkjet Systems.

Stand-out performers in the East of England bestowed honours also featured Artemida Pharma, a Stevenage-based drug development consultancy, and FAI Automotive in Leighton Buzzard which sells high-end automotive products globally.

The 2018 Queen’s Awards demonstrate why this region is so important to the UK economy, generating multimillion pound revenue for the Treasury while underpinning thousands of jobs.

Double winner Telensa hasn’t exactly been hiding its capability under a bushel but its Queen’s Award successes will certainly provide a light bulb moment for the company and those ignorant of its central capability to smart city projects.

The Innovation category success marks Telensa’s development of a version of its street lighting control node which combines its patented Ultra Narrow Band wireless communication system with an in-house developed, American National Standard Institute approved electricity meter. 

The ability for streetlight owners to accurately monitor electricity use in real time has created an incentive to introduce power saving technologies and for cities and power suppliers to work together to negotiate improved terms. 

Through introducing LED dimmable lights and having active control over the lights through Telensa’s systems, lighting providers have achieved savings of up to 60 per cent in energy costs. 

The structure of the markets in the US and Australia, where most street lights are utility-owned, particularly benefit from this technology. To date this version of Telensa’s control node has been installed in over 200,000 streetlights in the US. 

In terms of its International Trade Award, the Queen’s Award Office notes that the company is currently ramping up its international sales, having already demonstrated significant success in the US. 

Municipalities around the world are beginning to expand the number of connected assets and sensors, for analysing traffic, air quality, waste or drainage. Telensa’s low-cost wireless street lighting network with its open interfaces provides the ways to enable cities to achieve this affordably. Overseas sales have been hoisted by £9 million – a growth of over 739 per cent.

International Trade winner Darktrace is a global darling due to its world-leading cyber defence technology. It was founded in Cambridge in 2013 by mathematicians from the University of Cambridge alongside senior experts from the UK government’s security services. 

The vision was to change the way cyber security is approached by applying the biological principles of the human immune system to protect enterprises from advanced cyber-threats, using artificial intelligence. Using its unique unsupervised machine learning, Darktrace has identified 63,500 serious, in-progress threats across all network types. 

The company has pursued an aggressive, global growth strategy, driving rapid adoption of their technology in multiple markets and industries across the world. With over 5,000 deployments across 97 countries in every industry, the Enterprise Immune System is rapidly becoming the de facto artificial intelligence-based cyber defence solution. Over the last three years overseas sales have grown by 1,826 per cent. 

Featurespace  wins an award for Innovation. The company is currently recruiting 100 top tech hands in Cambridge and the US to cash in on global demand.

Its Adaptive Behavioural Analytics machine learning fraud management software platform called ARIC was first identified as a solution as the online gaming industry was constantly under attack by fraudsters. 

Traditional methods of combating these attacks were not proving effective. ARIC is the world’s first software platform to identify fraud attacks as they occur, whilst at the same time reducing the number of genuine customers who are incorrectly blocked. The system learns individual customer’s digital behaviours, accurately predicts their ongoing interactions and spots anomalous behaviours. 

As it does not rely on knowledge of past fraud attacks and works in real time to prevent fraud, it is highly effective. ARIC has now been adopted in financial services. One High Street bank estimates annual revenue savings of £11.5m since its introduction.      

International Trade  winner Zettlex (UK) designs and manufactures sensors for high-accuracy position and speed measurement in extreme environments.
The sensors can measure 1,000 points across the width of a human hair, even if the sensor is dirty, freezing, hot, in the upper atmosphere or the depths of the ocean.  

Sectors include aerospace, defence, medical, industrial and petrochemical. The business has 400 customers in 45 markets including the United States, Norway, Turkey, Germany and South Korea.

Endomagnetics Ltd, trading as Endomag, wins a Queen’s Award for Innovation. It is developing a clinical platform that uses safe magnetic fields to power diagnostic and therapeutic devices, avoiding the safety, workflow and availability concerns of ionising radiation. 

The innovation for which the company has been given an Award is a minimally invasive surgical guidance system. A lymph node identifying magnetic tracer known as Sienna, and a metallic tumour marker Magseed, can be located accurately by a surgeon in theatre with a handheld detector called Sentimag. This removes the need for radioactive isotopes during procedures, and in the case of breast lumpectomy wire localisation, thereby improving workflow, lowering costs and enhancing patient comfort and quality of care. 

Designed originally for the management of breast cancer, the platform has since extended to include prostate, melanoma, head and neck, and gynaecological cancers. With 18 granted patents and 35 pending the company is a prolific innovator.  
     
Artemida Pharma in Stevenage wins an International Trade Award. Established in April 2014 by a small group of individuals with extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry generally and specifically in the delivery of expert solutions for an international client base, it has successfully collaborated to take eight drug products from the nonclinical phase of drug development into the clinical phase, representing major progress for its clients. 

The operational model works by identifying the needs of the client and accessing the necessary skills to meet those needs from its outsourced network. This model has proven to be very successful with international sales more than doubling and profits increasing by two-thirds. Almost all the company’s sales are from overseas, especially Switzerland, South Korea and Japan. 

FAI Automotive Plc in Leighton Buzzard also wins the Queens Award for International Trade. Founded in 1969, the company is a leading independent supplier of aftermarket automotive replacement parts for domestic and light commercial vehicles.

It is a well known aftermarket brand known for high quality products and service for customers. It sells over 20,000 different parts across 15 product lines through distributors to over 50 countries worldwide and is developing it’s online presence to sell to a growing digital customer base. 

Overseas sales have grown sharply year on year over three years from £6.4 million to £9.9m – a total growth of 53.9 per cent. Overseas sales as a percentage of total sales have also grown from 28.7 per cent to 37.7 per cent over the period. The company has initially focused on Europe and its top five current markets are Poland, Romania, Portugal, Ireland and Italy.
      
Other East of Englands winners included AC Plc in Bedford, a specialist façade & interiors contractor; Airline Component Services in Braintree which operates jointly and sells, exchanges and loans aircraft parts for rotable flying controls; Harlow-based Astro Lighting Holdings which designs and makes contemporary lighting for high-end domestic and hospitality projects and Bamboo Distribution in Waltham Abbey which specialises in the recovery, refurbishment, distribution, fulfilment and recycling of consumer electronic devices.

They are joined in today’s victory parade by Cambridge Integrated Circuits which develops and makes electronic components for measuring the precise position of moving parts inside machines without contact; GAMA Healthcare in Watford which specialises in manufacturing antimicrobial products with an emphasis on wet wipes; Cambridge-based Global Inkjet Systems; Hanningfield Process Systems in Essex which designs and makes process machinery for the pharmaceutical industry and iCandy World in Biggleswade which has designed a unique push chair.

Other East of England winners are Kestrel Liner Agencies at Stansted which provides bespoke and specialist international logistics solutions to markets of the Caribbean, the Americas, the Middle East Gulf and Israel, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa; Lintbells in Hitchin which is a pet products innovator; Lintott Control Systems in Norwich which specialises in manufacture and aftercare of packaged water and wastewater treatment systems; Peli BioThermal in Leighton Buzzard which provides the life sciences industry with thermal protection packaging solutions for the safe transport of pharmaceuticals, clinical trials, diagnostics, tissue, vaccines and blood supplies; Photocentric in Peterborough which manufactures 3D LCD printers and patented photopolymer packs for making stamps; and construction company Willmott Dixon in Letchworth which won a Queen’s Award for Promoting Opportunity.

Willmott Dixon’s Award is something of a rarity. The company provides a careers advice, skills development and mentoring programme to prepare young people for work and has offered accessible structured work experience since 2011.

It aims to enhance the life chances of 10,000 young people by 2020 compared to a 2012 baseline, and statistics have been provided which prove that this goal is on track to being achieved.

By means of the Crown Estate’s ‘Total Contribution’ methodology, it has been calculated that for every £1 Willmott Dixon invested in the programme, a social return of £5.70 was delivered. Client feedback has highlighted the value clients place on supporting social mobility. 

• Image courtesy – Telensa

The real estate investment arm of a Wall Street-quoted $1 trillion US corporation has provided a £21.5 million loan facility to underpin development of two logistics hubs in Suffolk valued at £35m.

Jaynic and PGIM Real Estate have partnered to develop the units at Suffolk Park, Bury St Edmunds. 

PGIM Real Estate, which acted for institutional investors in the deal, is part of PGIM, the global investment management corporation headquartered in the US and trades on the New York Stock Exchange.

A £13m contract has been let to Readie Construction and building of the two units of approximately 147,000 sq ft and 206,000 sq ft respectively, on a 19-acre plot will start at the beginning of May. 

PGIM Real Estate’s loan finances 95 per cent of costs for the site acquisition and development which is expected to complete in November.There is potential for an occupier to start racking/fit-out about one month earlier. Forecast rental values are £5.95 per sq ft based on standard FRI lease.

The BREEAM excellent development has 12.5 m clear height, 50m deep service yards, level access and dock loading together with ancillary offices.

Ben Oughton, development director with Jaynic, said: “These units will be the only speculative development in this area currently being undertaken. It will provide much needed stock that can be delivered before the end of 2018 setting the scheme apart from other development sites in the vicinity, where lead in and occupation lags by anywhere between 12 – 24 months.”

Andrew Macland, managing director and head of UK at PGIM Real Estate added: “We are proud to be Jaynic’s funding partner for this scheme as its expertise and track record exemplifies our partner-led investment approach. This well-located site in a currently under-served area for logistics properties will offer our investors access to a strongly performing sector. Jaynic has a strong development pipeline and we are looking forward to establishing a long-term relationship through further projects together.”

The development is part of a broader initiative with St Edmundsbury Borough Council and housebuilder Taylor Wimpey to support a range of new and existing businesses in the popular Bury St Edmunds area and to continue to create jobs and prosperity.

The infrastructure, including all utilities and the main estate road, and landscaping contracts for Suffolk Park have been let and are due for completion in the next few weeks.

Bury St Edmunds is the primary commercial and administrative centre for West Suffolk and boasts a variety of service sector, production and manufacturing occupiers including major national operators such as Sealey, Greene King, British Sugar, DHL, Century Logistics, Treatt, Servest, Mizkan and Taylor Wimpey.

Jaynic has been responsible for the creation of a number of major employment sites in the region including Cambridge Research Park, Buckingway Business Park, Cambridge, University of Essex Knowledge Gateway, Colchester, Haverhill Business Park and Haverhill Research Park.
Agents for Suffolk Park are Savills and Hazells.

Arm has joined forces with other global technology power players – many with a Cambridge UK presence – to form an unprecedented cyber security defence league.

The Cybersecurity Tech Accord has been founded by the superchip architect along with Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco and other tech giants – including the under-fire Facebook – in a trade bloc of more than 30 innovators.

Under the four-point accord, the signatories agree to do their utmost to defend customers everywhere from malicious cyber attacks by cyber criminal enterprises and nation states.

Carolyn Herzog, general counsel at Arm, explained: “In the next four years, economic losses from cyber attacks on businesses, organisations and individuals could total a staggering $8 trillion.

“Along this long trail of lost currency will be human stories of people having their identities stolen, bank accounts emptied; and businesses losing revenue and suffering damage to their reputation.

“At Arm, we believe in the enormous benefit that a more securely connected world will bring. In fact, our company has a long history of security innovation informed by the belief that effective security solutions require an expanding portfolio of secure IP, software and a collaborative ecosystem fortifying devices across a common platform.”

The quadruple cyber defence fortress will be built on:-
• Stronger defence: The companies pledge to protect all customers globally regardless of the motivation for attacks online.
• No offence: The companies will oppose cyber attacks on innocent citizens and enterprises from anywhere.
• Capacity building: The companies will do more to empower developers and the people and businesses using their technology – helping them improve their capacity for protecting themselves.
• Collective action: The companies will establish formal and informal partnerships with industry, civil society and security researchers to improve technical collaboration, coordinate vulnerability disclosures, share threats and minimise malicious code being introduced into cyberspace.

Herzog added: “At Arm, as we have built a successful global business in semiconductor IP and software, security has long been a primary design consideration. This includes introducing leading solutions such as Trustzone and the Platform Security Architecture (PSA).

“In October 2017, Arm’s Security Manifesto gave a more prominent voice to security innovation, exploring  the nature of our industry’s responsibility as guardians of the Information Revolution and the Digital Social Contract for Security that Arm believes all technology providers must rally behind. These principles stand behind our engagement with the Cybersecurity Tech Accord.

“All signatories to the Tech Accord are united in the belief that we must continually do more to stay ahead of the cyber criminals and other malicious actors.

“Just recently, government services in Atlanta were paralysed by a ransomware attack. In 2017 the UK’s National Health Service, the world’s biggest healthcare provider, was targeted by a WannaCry cryptoworm attack. It led to 7,000 cancelled appointments and some hospitals being forced to disconnect from the internet.

“Now, as we look forward to a trillion connected devices being deployed over the next 20 years we must stand shoulder to shoulder in our commitment to protect cyberspace.

“Staying ahead of threats is a constant battle and the pledge the industry is making in the Cybersecurity Tech Accord will continue to strengthen security and help to ensure the benefits of a data-driven world are fully-realised for all.”

In a separate and significant collaboration with Microsoft and others, Arm has unveiled a new IoT solution to accelerate the development of secure chips.

Paul Williamson, VP and general manager, IoT Device IP Line of Business at Arm, said the new SDK-700 System Design Kit was a comprehensive SoC system framework for designing secure chips for rich IoT nodes, gateways, and embedded applications.

“This solution enables partners to build secure devices within a common software development environment, while enabling the diversity and differentiation for their business to thrive in new IoT applications,” he said.

The SDK-700 supplies a secure SoC framework foundation for Microsoft Azure Sphere, announced at RSA in San Francisco.

Williamson added: “The flexibility of the solution enabled us to collaborate closely with Microsoft to ensure it meets the security requirements designated by Azure Sphere.

“This allows SoC designers to use SDK-700 to bring Azure Sphere SoCs to market quickly, leaving them to focus on differentiation because they can be confident that their design meets Microsoft guidelines.

“Devices must be born secure. Connecting a trillion connected devices will require all parts of the value chain to embrace the guiding principle that security can no longer be optional or an afterthought when designing IoT SoCs and systems.

“But to do this, the industry needs to move faster and foster more trust. SDK-700 is one more way for the industry to move faster with a proven and validated approach for embedded systems design.”
 

Arm has joined forces with other global technology power players – many with a Cambridge UK presence – to form an unprecedented cyber security defence league.

The Cybersecurity Tech Accord has been founded by the superchip architect along with Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco and other tech giants – including the under-fire Facebook – in a trade bloc of more than 30 innovators.

Under the four-point accord, the signatories agree to do their utmost to defend customers everywhere from malicious cyber attacks by cyber criminal enterprises and nation states.

Carolyn Herzog, general counsel at Arm, explained: “In the next four years, economic losses from cyber attacks on businesses, organisations and individuals could total a staggering $8 trillion.

“Along this long trail of lost currency will be human stories of people having their identities stolen, bank accounts emptied; and businesses losing revenue and suffering damage to their reputation.

“At Arm, we believe in the enormous benefit that a more securely connected world will bring. In fact, our company has a long history of security innovation informed by the belief that effective security solutions require an expanding portfolio of secure IP, software and a collaborative ecosystem fortifying devices across a common platform.”

The quadruple cyber defence fortress will be built on:-
• Stronger defence: The companies pledge to protect all customers globally regardless of the motivation for attacks online.
• No offence: The companies will oppose cyber attacks on innocent citizens and enterprises from anywhere.
• Capacity building: The companies will do more to empower developers and the people and businesses using their technology – helping them improve their capacity for protecting themselves.
• Collective action: The companies will establish formal and informal partnerships with industry, civil society and security researchers to improve technical collaboration, coordinate vulnerability disclosures, share threats and minimise malicious code being introduced into cyberspace.

Herzog added: “At Arm, as we have built a successful global business in semiconductor IP and software, security has long been a primary design consideration. This includes introducing leading solutions such as Trustzone and the Platform Security Architecture (PSA).

“In October 2017, Arm’s Security Manifesto gave a more prominent voice to security innovation, exploring  the nature of our industry’s responsibility as guardians of the Information Revolution and the Digital Social Contract for Security that Arm believes all technology providers must rally behind. These principles stand behind our engagement with the Cybersecurity Tech Accord.

“All signatories to the Tech Accord are united in the belief that we must continually do more to stay ahead of the cyber criminals and other malicious actors.

“Just recently, government services in Atlanta were paralysed by a ransomware attack. In 2017 the UK’s National Health Service, the world’s biggest healthcare provider, was targeted by a WannaCry cryptoworm attack. It led to 7,000 cancelled appointments and some hospitals being forced to disconnect from the internet.

“Now, as we look forward to a trillion connected devices being deployed over the next 20 years we must stand shoulder to shoulder in our commitment to protect cyberspace.

“Staying ahead of threats is a constant battle and the pledge the industry is making in the Cybersecurity Tech Accord will continue to strengthen security and help to ensure the benefits of a data-driven world are fully-realised for all.”

In a separate and significant collaboration with Microsoft and others, Arm has unveiled a new IoT solution to accelerate the development of secure chips.

Paul Williamson, VP and general manager, IoT Device IP Line of Business at Arm, said the new SDK-700 System Design Kit was a comprehensive SoC system framework for designing secure chips for rich IoT nodes, gateways, and embedded applications.

“This solution enables partners to build secure devices within a common software development environment, while enabling the diversity and differentiation for their business to thrive in new IoT applications,” he said.

The SDK-700 supplies a secure SoC framework foundation for Microsoft Azure Sphere, announced at RSA in San Francisco.

Williamson added: “The flexibility of the solution enabled us to collaborate closely with Microsoft to ensure it meets the security requirements designated by Azure Sphere.

“This allows SoC designers to use SDK-700 to bring Azure Sphere SoCs to market quickly, leaving them to focus on differentiation because they can be confident that their design meets Microsoft guidelines.

“Devices must be born secure. Connecting a trillion connected devices will require all parts of the value chain to embrace the guiding principle that security can no longer be optional or an afterthought when designing IoT SoCs and systems.

“But to do this, the industry needs to move faster and foster more trust. SDK-700 is one more way for the industry to move faster with a proven and validated approach for embedded systems design.”
 

Spectral Edge, the Cambridge UK image fusion technology business, has raised $5.3 million from existing investors Parkwalk Advisors and IQ Capital. The new money be used to expand the company’s R & D team and support the development of real-world applications for its technology in key areas of focus – notably smartphones, webcams and security applications.

Spectral Edge combines cutting-edge imaging science – with machine learning to improve pictures and videos on mass-market devices. This is done in real time on a pixel-level, embeddable technology that can be implemented purely in software or in silicon. 

The technology behind the process can be used across a range of potential applications that rely on image quality for either function or aesthetics –from mobile to security and from automotive to on-demand video or live broadcast.

Over the past year Spectral Edge has continued to build its management team following the appointment of Rhodri Thomas as CEO in February 2017. Rhodri joined the business from predictive keyboard technology pioneer SwiftKey which was sold to Microsoft in 2016. 

Most recently, Dr Ilya Romanenko has joined as CTO from ARM Holdings, bringing a wealth of experience in applicable technology and deep learning. He heads up the R & D department which currently includes five PHDs, including three image fusion experts who were heavily involved in the creation of the company’s patents.

The new funding will enable expansion of the R & D team to 12 with specialisms in image processing, machine learning and embedded software development. 

It will also support the development of real-world applications in key areas of focus – in particular smartphones, webcams and security applications alongside the existing products for the TV & display industries. 

Rhodri Thomas said: “We are delighted to have the continued support of IQ Capital and Parkwalk Advisors as Spectral Edge moves to the next phase of growth and we see our technology reaching the marketplace.
 
“The opportunities for market application of our technology are hugely exciting, in particular in smartphones, TV picture processing and in security surveillance devices. This funding will allow us to continue to realise real-world applications as we further strengthen our technical team.”

Alastair Kilgour, CIO at Parkwalk Advisors, stated: “The technological progress at Spectral Edge in developing next-generation image fusion has been substantial since we made our first investment and with this fund raise commercial engagement with companies and industries looking for an edge in image enhancement, such as smartphones and security cameras, will be escalated.”

Spectral Edge works closely with specialist image science departments at a number of universities including the University of East Anglia. Spectral Edge was recently a finalist at the BT Sport Innovation Award, where its technology was applied to an innovative solution for helping colour-blind people watch sports streams on TV.

Cambridge University scientists may have found a way to improve the repair of brain injury or disease without the need for surgery.

A team at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute have identified a new type of stem cell in the brain which they say has a high potential for repair – a major goal of regenerative research. The breakthrough holds significant implications in instances of Alzheimer’s disease or head trauma, disease or ageing.

The brain is poor at repairing itself but the Gurdon team solution is to target stem cells ‘sleeping’ in patients’ brains.

Stem cells have the unique capacity to produce all the cells in the brain but are normally kept inactive in a form of cellular ‘sleep’ known as quiescence. Quiescent cells do not proliferate or generate new cells so any regenerative therapy targeting stem cells must first awaken them from this state.

In a study published in the journal Science, Dr Leo Otsuki and Professor Andrea Brand report the discovery in the brain of a new type of quiescent stem cell – known as ‘G2 quiescent stem cell’ – with higher regenerative potential than peer cells identified previously.

Importantly, G2 quiescent stem cells awaken to make the key types of cell in the brain (neurons and glia) much faster than known quiescent stem cells – making them attractive targets for therapeutic design.

Professor Brand said: “The brain is not good at repairing itself but these newly-discovered stem cells suggest there may be a way to improve its ability. These stem cells are in a dormant state but once awake have the ability to generate key brain cells.”

By studying the fruit fly (Drosophila), the authors identified a gene known as tribbles that selectively regulates G2 quiescent stem cells. The DNA of fruit flies has many similarities with that of humans, making them a useful model to understand human biology. Sixty per cent of human genes associated with disease are also found in Drosophila.

The tribbles gene has counterparts in the mammalian genome that are expressed in stem cells in the brain. The researchers believe that drugs that target tribbles might be one route to awakening G2 quiescent stem cells.

“We’ve found the gene that directs these cells to become quiescent,” adds Dr Otsuki. “The next step is to identify potential drug-like molecules that block this gene and awaken a person’s stem cells. We believe there may be similar quiescent stem cells in other organs and this discovery could help improve or develop new regenerative medicines.”

The study was paid for by the Royal Society and Wellcome Trust and core funding to the Gurdon Institute from the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK.

The Gurdon Institute has a potent record in groundbreaking research – and in spinning out exciting life science enterprises.

More than 240 scientists work in the Gurdon Institute’s purpose-built laboratories on projects ranging from breast cancer and brain development to liver regeneration and leukaemia.  Many have made pioneering contributions to the fields of basic cell biology, cellular reprogramming, epigenetics and DNA repair.

Research conducted at the institute has already led to nine spin-out companies including KuDOS Pharmaceuticals, Abcam, Chroma Therapeutics, CellCentric, Mission Therapeutics and Talisman Therapeutics plus five candidate drugs. One of these, olaparib (Lynparza), has been approved in the UK, Europe and the US for use against ovarian cancers.

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Professor Andrea Brand

Cambridge-based pharma giant AstraZeneca is trialling neighbour Owlstone Medical’s disease breathalyser as a potential diagnostic for respiratory complaints.

The UK life science duo are collaborating to explore how breath can identify novel biomarkers to help differentiate between disease phenotypes relevant for asthma and COPD.

The Cambridge partners believe the technology could be a key advance in delivering precision medicine to patients. They argue that by identifying disease phenotypes and treatable traits, the underlying heterogeneity of obstructive lung diseases can be explored.
 
Owlstone believes its technology offers a rapid, non-invasive approach to identify breath-based biomarkers that could help to stratify and monitor patients so they receive the correct therapy at the optimum dosage.

Chronic respiratory disease, including asthma and COPD, is a substantial health and economic burden globally often causing reduced quality of life and premature death for sufferers. 

An estimated 334 million people worldwide have asthma and 251 million suffer from COPD.

Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical, said: “This agreement with AstraZeneca demonstrates our unrivalled expertise in breath biomarkers. Through our breath biopsy services we are well positioned to assist the AstraZeneca team to explore how our technology can identify novel biomarkers for asthma and COPD and to optimise their application in precision medicine.”

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Billy Boyle