Japanese pharma giant Takeda has raised $36 million to launch a new brain disease hothouse in the Cambridge UK life science cluster just four months after a review indicated it would close its operations in the city.

The company told Business Weekly in July that it was keeping its options open to spin off key programmes to a Takeda-funded biotech – now that has been made flesh with a new Cambridge neuroscience company called Cerevance, launched in partnership with life science livewire Lightstone Ventures.

Cerevance will focus on discovering and developing novel therapeutics for neurological and psychiatric disorders and Takeda is jump-starting the venture by providing a 25-person neuroscience research team at its Cambridge site.

The $36m funding for Cerevance includes a $21.5m Series A financing investment from Takeda and Lightstone. The new enterprise will use a new technology, created in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute laboratory of Nathaniel Heintz at the Rockefeller University.

Seven of the 10 leading causes of disability in the world are central nervous system disorders and as a result of this new venture Takeda hopes to rapidly advance a pipeline of therapeutics.

A spokesperson said: “As a result of this decision, Cambridge UK will become home to some of Cerevance’s best scientists, programmes and discovery resources. When Takeda announced changes to our research capabilities in Cambridge, we were determined to find an innovative home for our most promising CNS programmes and scientists. Cerevance is a great example of our vision for working with the venture capital community to launch and supports our R & D strategy.

“We believe this is a positive development in our endeavour to tackle brain diseases, as well as our commitment to continuing to invest in Cambridge.”

The Cambridge research team will include industry veteran Mark Carlton, fully equipped laboratory space and licences to a portfolio of preclinical and clinical stage drug programmes. 

Cerevance CEO Brad Margus said: “With a well capitalised, proven team and promising drug programmes already underway, we hope to rapidly advance a pipeline of therapeutics into the clinic in parallel with scaling up a truly novel approach to brain diseases based on our new technology.”

This is not the first time that Takeda, Heintz and Margus have joined forces. In 2009, Takeda invested in and later collaborated with CNS drug discovery start-up Envoy Therapeutics which included Heintz and Margus as founders and which also licensed a technology from the Rockefeller University. Takeda ultimately acquired Envoy in 2012.

Cerevance will have sites in both Massachusetts and Cambridge UK, “surrounded by vibrant academic research ecosystems that support biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.”

Lightstone is a heavyweight and prolific investor in life science enterprises. It has been involved in several of the largest venture-backed healthcare exits over the last decade from its offices across the US and in Ireland and Singapore. 

Cambridge is set to benefit from a £226 million investment by Cancer Research UK – its largest to date – in its network of centres.

The funding boom is designed to help Cancer Research UK reach its goal of three in four people surviving their cancers by 2035.

A total of £190 million has been committed to 13 Cancer Research UK Centres over the next five years, including Cambridge.

With Departments of Health, the organisation is pumping a further £36 million over the same timespan into 18 Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres (ECMCs) for adult patients and a network of centres for children. Again Cambridge is among these.

The huge investment will draw together world-class research and medical expertise to accelerate advances in research and support clinical trials essential to getting lifesaving treatments to patients.

Cancer Research UK Centres bring together research teams from local universities, NHS hospitals and other research organisations. They operate as a network that focuses on translational research – getting cutting edge discoveries from the laboratory to patients and learning as much as possible from patients to initiate new research ideas and programmes.

The ECMCs aim to bring better treatments faster to cancer patients in the UK through both the adult and children’s network of Centres. They are hubs where promising cancer treatments – including small molecule drugs, surgery, immunotherapy, and vaccines – are safely tested for the first time in patients. 

These centres help give people with cancer access to cutting-edge treatments and precision medicine by testing new ways of detecting and monitoring the disease and how it responds to treatment.

The capital injection will also help train the next generation of cancer researchers by funding PhD students and cancer doctors at the start of a research career and providing specialist training for ECMC staff involved in the development and delivery of clinical trials.

Centre status is awarded to locations performing the highest quality cancer research and investment is made into infrastructure, funding for technical staff, equipment, training and running costs, developing the breadth and depth of research at each of these centres.

The applications are reviewed by an international panel of experts to make sure that only the best science is funded.

Dr Iain Foulkes, executive director of strategy and research funding at Cancer Research UK, said: “This is the largest investment we have ever made into the centres and we are incredibly proud of that. 

“It’s also the first time we have co-funded the paediatric ECMC network with the National Institute for Health Research and the Chief Scientist Office, Scotland, which will help boost research to develop smarter, kinder treatments for children.

“This money provides vital infrastructure for bench to bedside research. By strengthening the relationship between scientists and doctors, basic research guides clinical practice as effectively as possible.

“This is particularly important for hard to treat cancers like pancreatic, oesophageal, lung and brain tumours. By combining expertise and different disciplines, we hope to ignite much needed momentum into research for these cancers.

“The funding is also an investment in the next generation of scientists. We are creating opportunities for PhD students and ensuring that the brightest scientists are attracted and supported in their career in cancer research.”

Cancer Research UK’s projections are that we will reach more than 500,000 new diagnoses of cancer a year in the UK by 2035. By that time, the organisation’s goal is that three in four people will survive their cancer. 

• PHOTOGRAPH: Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, one of the partner organisations in the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre

Cambridge Consultants has unveiled one of the smallest known robots for surgical use. Axsis has an external body the size of a drinks can and instruments only 1.8 millimetres in diameter.

The UK technology innovator says the nanosize newcomer provides a glimpse into the future of surgical robotics.

The technology demonstrator uses cataract surgery as an example of a procedure that could benefit from miniature robotics. But Axsis shows the potential for increased precision, minimally invasive access and highly accurate navigation for a wide variety of clinical procedures that cannot be carried out with current surgical robots, the company claims.

Possible applications could include early intervention procedures for cancer and placement of certain neurostimulation implants.

Traditional surgical robots are large by design, stemming from the need to control long, straight instruments that pass through small holes into the patient. The need for systems to be physically large is heightened by the forces they need to exert on the body during surgery, the requirement to adapt to multiple configurations and the degrees of freedom needed to effectively operate them.

In its prototype, Cambridge Consultants has demonstrated that – by using flexible instead of straight instruments – novel motor and control configurations can be used, allowing the overall size of the robot to be reduced significantly, and eliminating the need for a large range of motion outside the body.

With the right instrument design, the outer diameter of the minimally invasive access point can also be reduced.

Robotics is already transforming surgery. But Axsis shows how the next wave of miniature systems can revolutionise procedures that require very small and precise movements to access complex or obstructed structures within the body.

A smaller robot allows surgeons and doctors to work with multiple types of tools and to get closer to the patient without the barrier of large equipment. It also makes procedures less invasive by enabling surgeons to create much smaller incisions. 

“This level of innovation in surgical robotics has the potential to significantly enhance medical treatments and procedures for surgeons and patients alike,” said Chris Wagner, head of advanced surgical systems at Cambridge Consultants. 

“Take cataract surgery, for example. It is performed by hand, under a microscope, with tools that are about two millimetres in diameter. It’s the world’s most common surgery, yet there are still critical complications that can result due to the small size and delicate nature of the eye, and the experience and skill of the surgeon.

“This is where the traditional benefits of robotics – such as motion scaling and minimally invasive access – can help. If we can build robots at this size scale, surgeons of all levels of experience can benefit, improving procedure outcomes and allowing more facilities to offer cataract procedures.”

Along with cataract surgery, Axsis demonstrates how the novel system design could improve the way medical professionals approach a variety of other procedures that require a high level of precision and minimally invasive access.

From early intervention procedures for cancer, to expanding the reach of natural orifice surgery for oesophageal and gastrointestinal tract procedures, the high precision, control and access offered by accurate and flexible systems like Axsis can enable surgical outcomes not possible today. Beyond that, Axsis could allow for robotics to be used in procedures that are currently only performed by hand, such as the placement of certain neurostimulation implants.

By creating space efficiency within the operating theatre, Axsis’s small size also promises significant cost savings and lowers the barrier to entry for less experienced robotic surgeons and smaller hospitals, as robotic tools can be swapped in and out as needed. This improves hospital operations while opening up greater access for patients. 

Wagner said: “Axsis proves that it is not only possible to create surgical robots that are smaller than ever before – but also to target surgical procedures with robotics that were previously out of reach.”

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: The Axsis surgical robotics system

Cambridge antibodies powerhouse Kymab has raised $100 million Series C funding from big-hitting global investors.

The Series C follows the $120 million Series A & B financings raised by the UK business.

The Series C financing was led by new investors ORI Healthcare Fund L.P. with participation by Shenzhen Hepalink Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, as well as follow-on investments from existing shareholders Wellcome Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Malin Corporation plc; CF Woodford Equity Income Fund and Woodford Patient Capital plc.

The funds will enable Kymab to advance its proprietary pipeline of first-in-class therapeutic human monoclonal antibodies, the first of which starts clinical development in 2017.

Kymab is using the Kymouse™ transgenic human antibody platform to discover and develop fully human monoclonal antibody drugs.

Data published in Nature Biotechnology demonstrate that the Kymouse technology yields an antibody library constituted from 100 trillion different antibodies. From this deep library rare high-quality antibodies can be selected and developed into therapeutics.

Antibodies are one of the best-selling classes of drugs today; five of the top ten best selling drugs are antibodies.

This is because antibodies are natural products with exquisite specificity and potency, and generally have superior safety profiles. The challenge has been to capture the full human antibody repertoire and to recapitulate all its attributes.

Dr Dave Chiswell, CEO of Kymab, said: “We are delighted to welcome new investors ORI Fund and Hepalink and thank our existing investors for their continued support in our goal of building Kymab into a sustainable global biopharmaceutical company with a pipeline of products in four main therapeutic areas – immuno-oncology; auto-immunity; haematology and infectious disease.

“ORI Fund and Hepalink bring deep experience of the pharmaceutical industry. Hepalink has a global reach for their products and have biologics manufacturing capability in the US.

“This investment will help us maximise the potential of the Kymab pipeline as we develop and commercialise monoclonal antibody medicines for patients worldwide.”

Li Li, president and chairman of Hepalink, added: “We have had a biologics strategy for a number of years and believe Kymab has one of the most comprehensive humanised transgenic antibody platforms which is already delivering first-in-class antibodies.”
 

Three Cambridge companies and one from Norwich are among the 50 fastest growing businesses in the UK as ranked by the Deloitte Technology Fast 50.

Epos Now (Norwich) in 30th place and Cambridge trio Speechmatics (36th), Horizon Discovery (41st) and Featurespace (46th) muscle in on a London-dominated league table.

Rated for their growth over a four-year period, Epos is said to have grown 597 per cent, Speechmatics 504 per cent, Horizon by 423 per cent and Featurespace 389 per cent.

Horizon, which is a gene editing world leader, is the only Life Science business among the East of England high flyers; all the others are software specialists.

Launched in 2011, Epos Now specialises in the design and manufacture of electronic point of sale (EPOS) technology that enables retail and hospitality businesses to automate processes, report, manage stock control, customers and is accessible anywhere via cloud computing.

The company has been a major disruptor in its market, enabling thousands of businesses of all sizes to access cutting-edge EPOS technology and connect to over 100 third party apps like Xero, Paypal or Apple pay at affordable prices for the first time.

Speechmatics provides cloud-based speech recognition based on the latest advances in deep learning neural networks. The technology was pioneered by Cambridge University ‘Dontrepreneur’ Dr Tony Robinson 30 years ago and is now pushing the boundaries in speaker-independent automatic speech recognition with world-beating accuracy levels.

London-quoted Horizon Discovery is a pioneer in personalised medicines and  a gene editing world leader. It is making incredible strides in Europe, Asia and the US with its gamechanging reference standards in  mass demand. Under the inspired leadership of life science entrepreneur Dr Darrin Disley the company is more than doubling its footprint at an expanded global headquarters at Cambridge Research Park.

Featurespace is a global leader in adaptive behavioural analytics; its machine learning ARIC platform uses anomaly detection to analyse complex data streams in real time, for fraud and risk management.

Martina King, Featurespace CEO, said: “Our technology is delivering world-leading machine learning fraud protection to our clients, by outsmarting risk.

“I am confident we will see continued levels of strong growth, particularly given our expansion to deliver our systems to customers in North America and Europe.”

The ARIC platform understands individual behaviour in real time, identifying new fraud attacks as they happen to reduce the costs associated with managing fraud. Simultaneously, ARIC reduces the number of genuine transactions incorrectly declined, enabling businesses to accept more revenue.

The platform is deployed live for customers in financial services, gaming and insurance, including Betfair, Callcredit, William Hill, and TSYS, the US’ largest payments processor.
 

Former Autonomy Cambridge management have delivered a blistering verdict on a decision by US authorities to indict the company’s former CFO for alleged fraud leading up to the UK technology pioneer’s $11 billion sale to HP in 2011.

A federal grand jury indicted UK citizen Sushovan Hussain with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and multiple counts of wire fraud. He has not been arrested and no court date has been fixed – and Hussain’s lawyer as well as former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch insist the charges will be thrown out.

The Serious Fraud Office in the UK long ago jettisoned HP’s complaint saying there was not enough evidence to stand any prospect of a safe prosecution. Now Dr Lynch and Hussain’s lawyer John Keker are predicting a similar outcome in any US action. Dr Lynch pointed out that the scale of the allegations was shrinking fast.

He said: “This journey started as an allegation of a $5.5 billion fraud, now we are talking about $7.7 million and I am confident that Sushovan will show it to be zero. I know Sushovan is innocent of all these charges, and the evidence will prove this to be the case.

“HP made a series of false accusations against Autonomy in 2012. HP has since backtracked on those allegations, and changed its position time and again in the search for a scapegoat for its own failings.“

John Keker added: “Sushovan Hussain is innocent of wrongdoing. He defrauded no-one and as Autonomy’s CFO acted at all times with the highest standards of honesty, integrity and competence. He will be acquitted at trial.

“It is a shame that the US department of Justice is lending its support to HP’s attempts to blame others for its own catastrophic failings. Mr Hussain is a UK citizen who properly applied UK accounting rules for a UK company. This issue does not belong in criminal court in the United States.

A source close to the initial negotiations that took the Cambridge software business into American hands claimed to Business Weekly that former management had nothing to hide in terms of their part in the due diligence process. The source also claimed that the indictment against Hussain came on the very last day the authorities could act or drop the charges under the Statute of Limitations.

The Statute of Limitations is the length of time a person has to make a claim following an incident that gives rise to the claim. Once the specified time has passed an action can no longer be brought.

The source added that HP paid professionals millions of dollars to check out Autonomy’s figures, which were ratified and double checked by Deloitte and that Deloitte contacted all the companies named in the Autonomy invoices that underpinned the valuation of the HP acquisition and were assured that all were genuine transactions and strictly in order, the source added. “You can argue slight time delays in invoicing – measured in hours – in the case of some of the invoices but you must also take into consideration the issue of IRFS accounting versus US Gaap. And ultimately, this is all about revenue recognition. The indisputable fact is that the money in the bank was genuine and the value of the invoices involved cannot be questioned,” the sorce said.

According to the indictment, Hussain allegedly engaged in a scheme to defraud purchasers and sellers of securities of Autonomy Corporation plc (Autonomy) and Hewlett-Packard Company about the true performance of Autonomy’s business, its financial condition and its prospects for growth.

The indictment states that between 2009 and 2011, Hussain artificially inflated Autonomy’s revenues by backdating written agreements to record revenue in prior periods; recorded revenue on contracts that were subject to side letters or other contingencies that impacted revenue recognition; improperly recorded revenue for reciprocal or roundtrip transactions; and made false and misleading statements to Autonomy’s independent auditor about transactions allegedly supporting the recognition of revenue and other items in Autonomy’s financial statements. In so doing, Hussain allegedly issued materially false and misleading quarterly and annual financial statements on behalf of Autonomy. The indictment further alleges that defendant and others provided these financial statements to HP during the time that HP was considering whether to purchase Autonomy.

The indictment alleges that Hussain caused Autonomy to make materially false and misleading statements directly to HP regarding Autonomy’s financial condition, performance and business during the negotiations between HP and Autonomy leading up to the Aug. 18, 2011, acquisition announcement.

Allegedly, Hussain made false and misleading statements about the nature of Autonomy’s products, concealed Autonomy’s non-appliance hardware sales and made other false and misleading statements during HP’s “due diligence” of Autonomy.  In sum, the indictment charges Hussain with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 14 counts of wire fraud.

An indictment alleges that crimes have been committed and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution is the result of a multi-year investigation involving the FBI and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

A private legal battle between HP and Dr Lynch was scheduled for the High Court early next year but an informed source told Business Weekly lawyers for the parties were still talking and any court hearing – if at all – would not now be until 2018 at the earliest.

HPE executive Vice President, General Counsel John Schultz said: “HPE is pleased with the news that a federal Grand Jury has returned an indictment in this matter, alleging that Sushovan Hussain and others acted with fraudulent intent.“

October 2016 may prove to be a seminal month in the history of the Cambridge UK business, science & technology cluster.

It wasn’t just the record-breaking surge of deals that promises so much for the sustainable health of the hotspot but mega-billion dollar plans to underpin technology here in the long-term future.

The baseline figure for deals done in the innovation heartland tells only part of the story; October deals were valued at a tad over $16.9 billion – but on top of that you need to broker in the following triple whammy:-

1 – ARM’s new owner SoftBank and Saudi partners unveiled a new $100bn fund to be spent on technology – principally IoT – ventures which Cambridge-based ARM is at the heart of

2 – A new Cambridge to Norwich Tech Corridor was launched promising to generate another $700m for the local economy

3 – Business Weekly understands a new Chinese fund running into mega-millions is set to target Cambridge life science investments

It’s exactly the underpinning the cluster needs to future-proof its IP power and trade prospects against the threat of a dual Brexit-President Trump protectionist policy backlash over the coming months.

The Cambridge cluster October deals haul hoisted the accumulative value of transactions in the 43 months of Business Weekly’s Cambridge Deals Digest to $267.7bn – setting the monthly average at a new record $6.225bn.

A $15 bn deal with key customer Airbus was unveiled that will hand the Cambridge operations of Hexcel Corporation a fresh sales bonanza, underpinning new jobs and further justifying expansion at the company’s Duxford innovation hub – the Wall Street-quoted company’s European research nervecentre.

Once again, the muscle of the local life sciences community proved attractive to global pharma partners.

Crescendo Biologics teed up a potential $790m milestone bonanza via a collaboration with Japanese pharma giant Takeda.

The companies unveiled a multi-target collaboration and licence agreement for the discovery, development and commercialisation of Humabody®-based therapeutics for cancer indications with a high unmet medical need.

Gene editing world leader Horizon Discovery laid the foundations for a multimillion dollar haul from molecular screening work steered from a scaled-up Cambridge power base.

It also secured a deal worth at least £500k with an unnamed commercial partner for access to its bioproduction cell lines. The subscription deal is a first of a kind for Horizon and should stack up to considerably more than the original licence fee.

Research from the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge was licensed to European oncology business Carrick Therapeutics which raised $95 million from backers including Cambridge Innovation Capital.

Hi-tech sector companies chipped in significantly. Heavyweight Cambridge and global investors backed debugging software business Undo to grab a significant slice of a $312bn-plus international market after pitching $3.3m into a series A funding round.

The Series A was led by Cambridge Innovation Capital and investors included Rockspring, Martlet, Sir Peter Michael (founder of Quantel, Classic FM and California’s Peter Michael Winery), the Cambridge Angels group and Jaan Tallinn (a founder of Skype and Kazaa).

A blockbusting new $100 billion fund with Japanese and Saudi backing promises a long-term payback for ARM Holdings as it builds a world lead in the Internet of Things arena.

ARM’s new Japanese parent, SoftBank, announced it was set to team up with Saudi sovereign wealth vehicle Public Investment Fund (PIF) to launch an investment war chest focusing exclusively on the technology sector.

Sources close to SoftBank believed a sizeable chunk of the investment could be injected into synergistic plays around ARM’s IoT ecosystem following the Japanese company’s $31bn acquisition of the superchip architect this summer.

Avery Dennison, the $6bn turnover California packaging and location tech giant, invested in an £18 million funding round for Cambridge flexible electronics business PragmatIC.

Avery Dennison is a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Pasadena with leading global positions in labelling and packaging materials as well as radio frequency identification (RFID).

The US company joined existing shareholders Cambridge Innovation Capital and ARM in the round.

Cambridge and Sandy property group Kier completed the disposal of Mouchel Consulting to WSP Global Inc. for $93m cash. Other property deals worth in excess of $46m were transacted in the region.

And one to watch – we reported that Chinese company Hytera Communications Corporation was in preliminary talks to acquire Sepura, the Cambridge digital communications specialist.

Hytera later highlighted a number of potential obstacles to any deal – which would be all cash – but at the time of writing were still talking. We reckon any deal will be valued at around $100m, which is relatively cheap given Sepura’s international reputation and contacts. Even if Hytera gets cold feet, Sepura is piquing the interest of other potential international buyers, we have been reliably informed.