Drug and delivery device business Consort Medical plc almost doubled pre-tax profits to £21.9 million in the year to April 30 on revenues 6.2 per cent ahead at £294m.

Consort is based in Cambridge and its inhaler manufacturer Bespak in King’s Lynn. The stunning financial performance backed by a massive hike in dividend unsurprisingly sparked a bout of profit-taking when the markets opened today.

Looking ahead, CEO Jon Glenn (above) said group performance was expected to be broadly in line with Consort’s near-term expectations for the current financial year “despite some headwinds from contract phasing.”

He added: “Consort has again delivered further growth in revenue and profit in both divisions. Bespak has continued to make good progress with its diverse pipeline of product opportunities in this high margin business. 

“Aesica continues to improve its operating performance and its margins in line with our expectations, assisted by recent contract wins.”

Consort is proposing a final dividend 5.2 per cent higher to 13.21p “reflecting the good financial performance and the board’s confidence in the group’s prospects.”

The UK quoted company has also reduced net debt to £92.6m from £97m last time with good cash generation following further investments in the business. Gearing has been reduced to 1.7x.

Consort posted a number of landmarks in the year reported and Bespak can claim a large slice of the glory. It clinched its first full development agreement for its Syrina/Vapoursoft device with a leading global biopharma company and launched a second injectable device with the UCB Cimzia AutoClicks pre-filled pen in the UK and other European markets.

The launch of AstraZeneca’s Bevespi Aerosphere in the US meant Bespak was awarded a significant new multi-year agreement for the scale-up and supply of its proprietary pMDI valves and actuators.

Glenn said Consort Medical was on course for double digit operating margins at Aesica triggered by major contract wins. A number of Big Pharma players are in talks about using its technology.

Cambridge online investment platform SyndicateRoom has completed a trio of deals aggregating to £4.3 million in a heady seven days.

The first two represented the closure of two lift rounds for Peptinnovate and Alert Technology. SyndicateRoom negotiated an exclusive offer with the companies, whereby its members could participate in the equity rounds. Just ahead of that double whammy Cambridge-based Pekama closed an overfunded round.

Peptinnovate raised £2.7 million, Alert achieved £1 million and Pekama secured £600,000 in a spectacular UK hat-trick for the young businesses involved.

Lead investor and equity funding scheme, Discovery Park Technology Investments LP, contributed to each round.

Managed by NCL Innovation and supported by Kent County Council and the Regional Growth Fund, the company is committed to helping cutting-edge science and technology firms get their products or treatments to market.

Peptinnovate is a drug development company developing animmune regulating therapy for asthma. Richard Nagle, CEO, Peptinnovate, said: “Peptinnovate’s products have the ability to significantly advance the control and management of moderate to severe chronic inflammatory diseases, with the potential for immune regulation and remission. We wanted to raise additional capital to accelerate the development of our lead asset through clinical trials.”

Alert Technology has developed a portable real-time warning device which help minimise the risk of unintentional exposure to deadly airborne asbestos fibres in workplaces. The device, named ALERT, is said to be the world’s first warning device able to distinguish between asbestos and non-asbestos fibres.

Founder and MD Alan Archer said: “Despite the fact that asbestos is a category one human carcinogen with no safe level of exposure, disease caused by asbestos is a global and growing issue. Included in more than 3,500 products around the world, asbestos affects a wide range of industries, from all types of construction through the schools and government buildings.

“We were looking for a sophisticated investment platform which connect us to ambitious investors and SyndicateRoom has provided just that.”

Legal technology company, Pekama’s digital platform connects lawyers from different jurisdictions all over the world, providing them with the data they need to make decisions to optimise revenue streams, helping them build a more sustainable, and profitable, business.

Gonçalo de Vasconcelos, CEO and founder, SyndicateRoom said: “We’re seeing an ever-increasing number of companies coming to the SyndicateRoom platform for lift rounds and overfunding. These ‘top-ups’ are attractive to investors as they carry the certainty that the funding round is already complete and has had strong interest from others.

“There is also a real benefit to companies as they are able to extend the amount of capital raised quickly and easily via the platform. Importantly, we’re offering choice, for both members and entrepreneurs.”

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Gonçalo de Vasconcelos

Unfortunately despite presenting themselves as the safe, “Strong and stable”, option, the Conservatives have taken a second huge political gamble which has gone spectacularly wrong, leaving the public carrying the can and wondering what comes next

Running through a field of wheat is certainly no longer the worst thing Theresa May has done, writes Fiona Hotston Moore, partner at Ensors Chartered Accountants.

Theresa May called the election with the intention of delivering a far stronger mandate on which she could enter the Brexit negotiations. She started the campaign with a strong speech and perhaps at that point she reasonably thought she had it in the bag.

However, from then on the campaign was a disaster and Theresa May demonstrated a lack of commitment, passion and mettle. Many voters will have gone as far as to see it as arrogance.

The campaign did not address one of the key current issues for voters, being the funding of public services primarily the NHS, the police and care of the elderly.

Understandably the terrorist acts proved to be a key focus of attention in the campaign period. Whilst this might have been expected to strengthen the Conservative position, it actually seemed the reverse was true.

As things stand it appears we will have Theresa May continuing as prime minister, but she will now need to work very hard to win the support of her wider party members as well as those in other parties.

Unfortunately, as we go into the Brexit negotiations we have a potentially fatally wounded prime minister and we can expect to see a fair amount of party antics.

I suspect after the last couple of years in both British and global politics, few economists will attempt to predict the outcome. Certainly the pound has already slipped. Stock markets and the wider business community do not like uncertainty and are likely to be volatile. 

In my view whilst the Brexit negotiations are clearly very important, we also need the Government to address the wider fundamental challenges to our economy – wealth inequality, funding of the public sector (including the NHS, the police force, care, education and infrastructure) as well as a strategy for how we deal with the issues of an ageing population.

We have a generation approaching retirement that will not have paid off their mortgages or have their own home, who will have a lot of personal debt and who may have long-term physical and mental health problems which will preclude them from working, so deferral of the retirement age is not the solution.

In conclusion, the result was a political disaster for Theresa May and the UK, but perhaps finally our politicians will realise that they have to start listening to both their fellow members and the voters and we may come out of this with a greater connection between the leaders and their public?

In recent years, InsurTech has acted as an increasingly disruptive influence in the insurance sector, using technology and innovation to improve the efficiency of existing transactions and processes and to enhance customer experience, writes Georgina Perrott of Birketts LLP.

InsurTech currently sits under the wider umbrella of FinTech, although the recent increase in the focus on InsurTech is leading to it becoming an industry sector in its own right.

Startups are challenging the traditional insurance models and incumbents are investing in research and entering strategic partnerships to supplement or update their existing offerings.

Key changes to the insurance sector include insurers using smart devices to produce more personalised insurance, the appearance of new models such as usage-based insurance and peer-to-peer insurance and the exploration of the potential of Big Data. These raise interesting legal and ethical issues.

InsurTech is using smart devices to price products with increased accuracy based on observed behaviour and to encourage good behaviour. Auto-insurers have been the first to widely adopt smart devices to collect information about an individual customer’s needs and risks.

By installing a telematic device in the customer’s vehicle, or through a smartphone app, an insurer is able to determine a driver’s risk profile by collecting data on his or her driving, such as speeding and braking rates, as well as other factors which influence the driver’s risk including driving in rush hour, in urban areas or in bad weather.

The insurer can use this data to set a more accurate premium and the driver has a financial incentive to drive carefully. The use of data from wearables, such as Fitbits and smart watches, and connected-home technologies has similar potential to improve product pricing and incentivise good behaviour.

This has not yet been fully exploited by insurers but an example is South African insurer Discovery’s Vitality programme which uses fitness trackers to encourage health insurance customers to exercise.

New entrants are challenging the status quo by exploring new insurance models such as on-demand insurance and peer-to-peer insurance. Usage-based insurance aims to cover infrequent or one-off insurance events, such as insuring a camera for a day or the occasional flying of a drone.

Again, this development is visible in the car insurance market where start-ups Cuvva and Metromile provide insurance on a pay-as-you-go basis, reducing insurance costs for occasional drivers.

Peer-to-peer insurance models used by InsurTech start-ups vary, but broadly, the term covers a group of associated individuals who pool their premiums to insure against a risk.

One example is US start-up Lemonade which provides home insurance; it groups individuals by reference to their preferred charity and at the end of each year gives any surplus from the group’s risk pool to its chosen charity.

Other peer-to-peer insurers such as Friendsurance return surplus money at the end of the year to their customers. By pooling friends or individuals with common causes, the peer-to-peer model aims to remove the conflict between the insurance company and the individual when paying out claims and to reduce fraudulent claims.

Big Data provides new insights into customers for insurers and the mass of data available lowers one of the traditional barriers to entry to the insurance sector, that of accumulated historic data.

Insurers are exploring the use of data from a variety of sources to analyse and predict customer behaviour, for example, researching the correlation between posts made by an individual on social media and his or her behaviour to assess that individual’s risk.

Big Data can also be used to smooth the process by which individuals purchase insurance and improve claims processing.

Technological innovations and the increased use of data by insurers give rise to legal and ethical concerns, most notably in relation to privacy, data protection and discrimination.

Ownership and protection of intellectual property is also a consideration, particularly when working in partnership. Much of the data collected constitutes ‘personal data’ under the Data Protection Act 1998. 

With the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation in May 2018, insurers will need to obtain explicit, informed consent from an individual to the use and processing of his or her personal data. 

Ethically, there is a danger that with the increased use of Big Data in calculating premiums, ‘uninsurables’ (high risk individuals who cannot obtain or afford insurance) will emerge. This is particularly the case in the health and life insurance sectors where companies are already offering gene sequencing to identify risks to an individual’s health before they develop.

The gathering momentum behind InsurTech is likely to result in significant changes to the insurance market in the years ahead. It has the potential to create more personalised, fairly priced products and the use of smartphone apps by insurers to interact directly with customers, creates a more flexible, efficient and scalable structure.

Approached correctly, technological innovations present an opportunity for insurers to provide a more holistic service-orientated business model to customers. 

These developments present a wealth of legal and regulatory issues for businesses to consider when marketing new insurance products.

• You can call Georgina Perrott on 01223 326635 or email her at: georgina-perrott [at] birketts.co.uk

Corporate Social Responsibility is an important issue for businesses, with consumers and investors increasingly concerned about where they spend or invest their money, writes Liz Brownsell, senior associate, Birketts LLP. 

As a result, many businesses now have well-established CSR programmes. For some, there is a desire to go even further by setting up their own charitable corporate foundations.

There are obvious reputational benefits, as it is a great way to demonstrate the good that the business does within the community. However, there are some pitfalls to avoid, and below are some of the key points to consider.

1. The activities of the foundation must be exclusively charitable

The foundation cannot be established to promote the interests of the business. Its purposes must be exclusively charitable and for the public benefit. It is important to consider the planned activities and ensure that the legal requirements for charitable status will be met. There is substantial guidance on these requirements on the Charity Commission website, or professional advice could be sought.

2. The charity must be independent and the business cannot have a controlling influence

It is important to avoid a misplaced sense of ownership of the foundation. This is a key issue and the Charity Commission will be concerned to ensure that the foundation is sufficiently independent and not controlled by the business. 

The foundation’s trustees have a legal duty to act in the best interests of the foundation, and cannot make decisions based on what is best for the business.

Corporate foundations typically receive the majority of their income from their founding business and often also receive office space, staff time and other resources at the cost of the business. 

This can make it more difficult to demonstrate independence. It is therefore important that funding is gifted to the foundation without conditions on how it should be spent (or, if there are conditions attached, the trustees must be free to negotiate and decline funding if the conditions are not acceptable).

The trustees of the foundation must be able to discuss matters at board meetings without the influence of the business. So, it is not usually appropriate for representatives of the business (who are not trustees) to have the right to attend trustee meetings.

Additionally, the trustees must take care not to use any knowledge gained in their role as a trustee for the benefit of the business where it has been given in confidence.

3. Conflicts of interest must be appropriately managed

The trustees of charities are subject to strict legal duties on the management of conflicts of interest and may not personally benefit from their role. There must be a sufficient number of independent trustees to ensure it will be quorate when any trustees who are employed by the business are conflicted (e.g. when considering entering into an agreement with the business). It is also important to consider whether there is any personal benefit which might need to be authorised.

4. Arrangements for the use of staff, office space, etc. should be documented

As mentioned above, it is common for corporate foundations to be supported by the business with office space, staff time and other resources. It is important that the terms on which this support is provided are clear, and the Commission prefers written agreements to be put in place.

5. Trustees must understand their legal responsibilities

It is common for employees of a business to be asked to act as trustees of the foundation. It is important that anyone taking on this role fully understands what the role entails and the legal responsibilities involved. There is a lot of guidance available on the Charity Commission website, or a training course could be attended.

In conclusion, there might be several business reasons why you like the idea of setting up a charitable foundation associated with your business, but the main reason must always be to do good within the community and you need to be comfortable with the fact that the business will have no say over what the charity does.

• Contact Liz Brownsell on 01473 406383 or via email: liz-brownsell [at] birketts.co.uk 

Cambridge antibodies business F-star has clinched a €115 million initial deal with global giant Merck that could cascade into a €1 billion bonanza.

The UK company, named Life Science Innovation champion in the recent Business Weekly Awards, has expanded its relationship with Merck through a new strategic collaboration to develop and commercialise five bispecific antibodies in immuno-oncology; these include F-star’s lead asset FS118.

F-star will receive up to €115 million in R & D funding and milestone payments over the first two years and further milestone-based payments endemic in the contract.

Merck has the option to acquire the programmes with a potential deal value of more than €1 billion. 

John Haurum, CEO of F-star, said: “This immuno-oncology collaboration expands our strong relationship with Merck and is a further validation of the potential of F-star’s bispecific antibody platform. Our vision is to transform the treatment of cancer. This is the objective of partnering our lead asset FS118 and other next-generation immuno-oncology compounds with Merck. 

“This deal also underscores the attractiveness of our asset-centric business model, which provides a flexible deal-making framework whilst at the same time maximising the value of F-star’s bispecific programmes and technology platform.

“This approach also provides us with additional non-dilutive cash to support our investment in the development of our own pipeline of bispecific antibodies, with a strong focus on immuno-oncology.”

This collaboration with Merck is held within F-star’s fourth asset centric vehicle, F-star Delta.

Luciano Rossetti, executive VP, global head of Research & Development at the biopharma business of Merck, said: “Our collaboration with F-star will help us to rapidly enhance our pipeline and grow our portfolio of bispecific immunotherapies. 

“This deal complements our internal capabilities in immuno-oncology and positions us as a potential leader in this important area of research.”

To date, F-star has raised close to $200m in non-dilutive capital and revenues. The company currently employs over 80 people at its research site in Cambridge UK.

Merck is a leading science and technology company in healthcare, life science and performance materials. Around 50,000 employees work to further develop technologies that improve and enhance life – from biopharmaceutical therapies to treat cancer or multiple sclerosis, cutting-edge systems for scientific research and production, to liquid crystals for smartphones and LCD televisions. In 2016, Merck generated sales of €15bn in 66 countries.

Founded in 1668, Merck is the world’s oldest pharmaceutical and chemical company. The founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed corporate group. 

I was reading an article in the Huffington Post entitled ‘Why Women Gladly Date Ugly Men (and Often Prefer Them)’ which gave me new hope and set me thinking about the real and the ideal, not just in matters of the human heart, but in the field of consumer preferences.

As advertisers we often flatter ourselves that we know what customers want: never before has so much data been available to target markets and profile consumers.

And having satisfied ourselves that we have got their number – usually on the basis of their previous purchases, which we can now monitor minutely – we remake ourselves in their image and present them with their ‘ideal’ product or service.

Unfortunately, being human, people are fickle and unpredictable and perhaps they pick the products they do because they haven’t seen anything different or better.

In any case, you can’t bore your customer into buying by serving up the same old hash. It’s a game of diminishing returns.

On the other hand, when something original – even ugly – comes along, we’re often surprised and delighted. Take two very different products that meet these criteria: Marmite and the Volkswagen Beetle. Both have now attained iconic status and a large part of their attraction is that they are not trying too hard to please, to meet some consumer ‘ideal’. On the contrary, they say ‘we are what we are, love us or loathe us, take us or leave us’.  And, remarkably, a great many have chosen to take them.

Other iconic products come to mind – the Zippo lighter, the Anglepoise lamp, the Smeg fridge and the Land Rover jeep. 

All of these, if not actually ugly, are brutally functional and uncompromising in their design. And yet we have taken them all to our heart. They make no accommodation to prevailing fashion, but rather have created their own following.

They have character, personality and an attraction that is more than skin deep. As the Huffington Post columnist says of ugly men: “Women are much more inclined to  date with their emotions – to pick a man who is funny, comforting, kind and generous – and they’ll often pick one or more of those traits over his looks.”

The moral for advertisers is clear. Be bold, self-confident and unapologetic.  Sell your product or service on its merits and don’t try to be all things to all men and women – or you’ll end up pleasing none of them.

And what goes for the product or service offered goes equally for the publicity with which it is presented. I’m not saying you should throw marketing metrics out of the window. That would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

But if you’ll forgive me for mixing my metaphors, don’t let the tail wag the dog either. Create advertising that stands out rather than blends in. Better to be ugly and effective than innocuous and ignored.

simpsonscreative.co.uk/

Proximagen, which specialises in novel small molecule therapeutics – notably for CNS, pain and inflammation – plans to scale further from its Cambridge UK base as part of an ongoing global expansion strategy.

Business Weekly understands that the business is looking for more space to grow at its headquarters at the Babraham Research Campus which is a hotbed for rapidly expanding biotech innovators.

Also based in Minnesota, Proximagen’s continuing push for international growth has been strengthened by the decision of parent company Upsher-Smith Laboratories Inc. to sell its generics business and branded epilepsy therapy, Qudexy® XR (topiramate) extended-release capsules, to Sawai Pharmaceutical Co.Ltd.

The Japanese publicly traded and family run generics pharmaceutical company is said to have paid $1.05 billion for that element of the Evanstad Family-owned business.

Upsher-Smith Laboratories, which paid $550 million for Proximagen in 2012, says that following the Sawai deal, Proximagen ceases to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Upsher-Smith and will instead be a wholly-owned subsidiary of a newly created Evenstad holding company, ACOVA. The Evenstad Family will continue to fund Proximagen through ACOVA.

The Evenstad family said it remained committed to investing in innovative small molecule drug discovery and development so Proximagen would continue to benefit from ownership by investors with a long-term view.

CEO Mark Evenstad has become CEO of ACOVA. He said: “I am excited to continue to pursue my passion for helping patients and their families through the work that we undertake at Proximagen in developing new medicines.”

Bill Pullman, currently CSO and president of Upsher-Smith’s Biotech Research Institute Division, will lead Proximagen.

The owners said Proximagen’s strategy “remains to leverage the drug discovery expertise at its integrated site in Cambridge UK to develop innovative small molecule therapeutics in CNS, inflammation and pain. Proximagen will also maintain capabilities in the US with a focused team providing drug development, project management and translational medicine expertise.”

Pullman added: “This is an exciting new chapter for Proximagen. The company will continue to focus on achieving Mark’s vision through innovative small molecule drug discovery in Cambridge and our focused US-based development capabilities.”

Proximagen will retain its existing pipeline of small molecule NCE programmes, including two programmes in clinical development. In addition, Upsher-Smith’s intranasal midazolam programme for acute repetitive seizures (currently known as USL261) will become part of Proximagen’s pipeline.

Proximagen will maintain its strategy of collaborations for later stage clinical development, exemplified by its Phase II clinical collaboration with Roche on a VAP-1 inhibitor.

It will also continue to actively seek early stage collaborations, in addition to its existing collaboration with Saniona on an ion channel target, in order to access innovative ideas and programmes to which it can apply drug discovery and development expertise to progress into testing in the clinic.

Proximagen’s Babraham hub is an integrated drug discovery facility with in-house capabilities in medicinal chemistry, biology and drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics.

The company recently revealed that its pivotal Phase III trial of intranasal midazolam met its primary efficacy endpoint as a treatment for patients with seizure clusters. 

It plans to initiate talks with the FDA for a New Drug Application in the second half of this year based on the trial’s findings.

The company’s USL261 formulation was developed for intranasal delivery in patients who need to control intermittent bouts of heightened seizure activity.

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Babraham Research Campus