The Femtech & Women’s Health edition of ‘Discovery Spark’ champions early stage businesses working to close the gender health gap

 

Sandwich, Kent, UK / 30th May 2024 / Discovery Park, Kent’s thriving life science and innovation community, announced the selection of 11 promising start-ups in FemTech & Women’s Health to join Discovery Spark, their growth and support programme for early stage businesses. 

 

Igniting the growth of businesses solving women’s health challenges, the special female-focused edition of the Discovery Spark programme offers tailored mentoring and support for start-ups, preparing founders for success in investment pitches. The programme kicked off with a session at Discovery Park on 21st May, with more sessions spread over the next seven weeks.  Concluding with Pitch Day on 4th July, the cohort will compete to win a prize package worth over £50K, including 1 year of lab or office space at Discovery Park, alongside invaluable support from specialist partners. 

 

Discovery Park selected FemTech & Women’s Health as the focus of their special edition Discovery Spark programme in response to the Government’s  Women’s Health Strategy, which highlighted the lack of representation in medical research and shortfall in healthcare solutions specifically for women. Despite living longer, the average woman spends nearly a quarter of her life in poor health, compared with a fifth for men. Tacking female health inequalities is a focus for the South East region, with a partnership approach between Discovery Park, Kent and Medway Medical School, the NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board and Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex. 

 

Discovery Spark is led by Dr Renos Savva, Head of Innovation at Discovery Park and a recognised scientist, entrepreneur and venture development lead. Speaking about the new programme, Renos said:“Discovery Park is committed to championing the next generation of life science leaders, but even we were overwhelmed with the number of applications received for this edition of Discovery Spark. The 11 selected companies represent the best-of-the-best in new innovations for women’s health, helping to address the ‘missing 52%’ in health equity: Women make up the majority, yet continue to be overlooked in healthcare, with the UK having the largest female gender health gap in the G20.”

 

Companies selected for the Discovery Spark Femtech & Women’s Health Edition includes imphatec, an inventor of a pioneering subcutaneous drug delivery platform which aims to revolutionise the treatment of chronic and long-term illnesses, many of which disproportionately affect and unnecessarily burden women. The company recently went through their first seed round, raising significant capital. 

 

Also included is Hulk Bio, winner of the Scottish EDGE Wild Card award 2024. This biotech is transforming infant nutrition by offering a stem cell-based human milk alternative when breastfeeding is not possible. BodyOwn is aiming to simplify management of female sexual and reproductive health by providing a central point for validated information, care services, and assisted guidance, using tech to set new standards of care for women’s health. Personalised care provider Minter et AI Hormone Health is striving to improve access for women seeking diagnosis and treatment of perimenopause and the menopause, providing consultations and hormone health services both virtually and in-person. 

 

Organised as three immersive sessions held over the summer, Discovery Spark takes place at Discovery Park, Sandwich, and includes overnight accommodation for those taking part. Each session lasts for two-days, covering people, teams and brand, presentation and communication, and business metrics and markets. The programme is run in partnership with Barclays Eagle Labs, NHS Kent and Medway, plus Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex. 

 

Dr MaryAnn Ferreux, Chief Medical Officer at Health Innovation KSS, a partner of the FemTech & Women’s Health Special Edition Discovery Spark, said: “Passionate innovators are key to addressing health equity. The Discovery Spark programme exists to champion these promising businesses, along with providing all important networks for collaboration and ideas sharing. At the first Discovery Spark day, our Commercial and Enterprise team led a session on developing and understanding your value proposition. This is critical for all innovators of any stage of development, to help them to recognise the problem that they wish to solve and the impact that they expect their solution would make to systems and patients. We look forward to providing further innovator support as the programme continues.”

 

The 11 companies selected for the 2024 cohort are (listed alphabetically):

 

BodyOwn

BodyOwn is an early-stage start-up dedicated to simplifying women’s management of their sexual and reproductive health journeys. They provide a central access point for validated information, services, and assisted guidance, with privacy and inclusivity at the core.

Founders – Nayol Santos & Ruby Lai

 

Cooden Cosmetics

Frustrated by the significant unmet needs in medicine and inspired by the potential of scientific breakthroughs, this Imperial start-up was founded with a unified mission: ‘To create creams that address these critical gaps.’ Cooden Cosmetics are dedicated to developing innovative solutions that bring real relief and improvement to those who need it most.

Founders – James Millett & Conor Crooks

 

Etre Libre

Creating a Hybrid-Care technology platform which monitors health and wellbeing is an advanced analytics and data modelling platform for the Healthcare market, due to its design it can be utilised in multiple settings. Designed in partnership with Healthcare professionals and victims.

Founders – Katy Longhurst & Alison Mitchell-Hall

 

Hulk Bio

Hulk is transforming infant nutrition by offering a stem cell-based human milk alternative when breastfeeding isn’t possible. Addressing a gap in a $50B+ industry, they provide an option beyond traditional animal milk-based formulas that often fail to meet the compatibility needs of many infants.

Founder – Christina Rode

 

Imphatec

Imphatec has invented and developed a new subcutaneous drug delivery platform to revolutionise the treatment of chronic and long-term illnesses and for disease prevention. This allows patients to be free from the worries of noncompliance and dosing issues, including poor absorption from traditional regular dose tablet medication.

Founders – James Catt & Hassan Morad

 

Joii

Joii is transforming menstrual health management by leveraging artificial intelligence to develop the world’s first mobile application that can identify heavy menstrual bleeding, affecting 1 in 3 women globally. This solution aims to improve early monitoring, treatment, and diagnosis for numerous gynaecological health conditions related to heavy periods.

Founders – Justyna Strzeszynska & Danielle Nader

 

Make your path

Make Your Path is a Digital Health startup with ambitions to improve health and wellbeing through physical activity. It provides a digital platform with a live directory, matching system, and app that supports 1) clinicians to refer patients to safe and targeted non-medicalised activities effortlessly and with confidence to improve physical and mental health outcomes, and 2) employers to promote health and well-being amongst staff, esp. those working in sedentary, desk-based jobs.

Founders – Cindy Regalado & Amit Bansal

 

Minter et AI Hormone Health

Minter et Al is a private healthcare provider specialising in personalised care for women experiencing perimenopause and menopause. The company provides consultations and hormone health services UK-wide via virtual platforms and in-person clinics in Kent and London. Each patient receives tailored services, including bespoke hormone replacement therapies (HRT).

Founder – Lexie Minter

 

Peach

Peach is a new startup founded by four women with a passion for women’s health. Peach aims to increase awareness of pelvic health conditions and will deliver expert physiotherapy care by means of an online platform integrating personalised health coaching, nutrition guidance and biofeedback technology.

Founders – Rebecca Hyman & Naomi Hyman

 

S.M. Discovery Group (SMDG)

SMDG is a pre-clinical biotechnology company with extensive in-vitro and in-vivo data package, designing and delivering safe and effective therapies for some of the most debilitating diseases which impact women. SMDG has developed patent protected therapeutic platforms for targeted delivery of hard to deliver therapeutics across biological barriers and anti-inflammatory modalities.

Founders – Shadi Farhangrazi & Moein Moghimi

 

Young Mums Support Network

The Young Mums Support Network (YMSN) founded by Fiona Small in 2011, is a dedicated Community Interest Company that provides essential support to young mothers. With a focus on empowering these young women, YMSN offers a variety of tailored programs designed to help them navigate through the complexities of motherhood.

Founder – Fiona Small

 

Discovery Park is committed to supporting women in business and innovative organisations transforming women’s health. Contact Discovery Park for more information on business support and investment opportunities currently available.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Aileen McGettrick, Chief Scientific Officer at Prolight Diagnostics, located at Discovery Park. With Prolight entering a phase of rapid growth, we were eager to learn more about their innovative new technology and what it means for the future!

 

 

Can you share more about the technology you are developing and how it will help people?

Prolight Diagnostics is developing a point of care (POC) blood testing system based on proprietary single molecule counting technology capable of detecting extremely low levels of biomarkers in 10 minutes or less.

The technology originated 2018 in start-up Psyros Diagnostics Ltd, of which I’m one of the 4 co-founders. After acquisition of the company by Prolight Diagnostics in 2022 the POC system itself has now been branded Psyros™.

The Psyros™ system consists of a portable instrument and single use disposable cartridge that requires only a drop of blood to perform a test. It has been designed to be simple, easy to use near the patient, with a very competitive low cost. With the ability to multiplex and measure several biomarkers at the same time it has huge potential.

The ambition is to have test results available to doctors within ten minutes to allow rapid diagnosis and treatment when the patient is examined the first time, instead of spending critical time waiting for results from a hospital laboratory. Potential settings include the emergency department (ED), healthcare centres, ambulances, and care homes.

Initially, our cutting-edge technology is being used to develop a diagnostic POC test that measures the protein troponin with high sensitivity and accuracy, to aid in the rule-in and rule-out of heart attack. By measuring troponin, which is released from the heart into the bloodstream during a heart attack, the test helps to make a rapid diagnosis.

The vast majority (>90%) of chest-pain patients presenting to the ED are discharged safely without a diagnosis of heart attack. Tools that can help clinicians rapidly assess patients are of great benefit. The true utility for POC troponin tests is fast, safe rule out of chest pain patients. This has the potential for more efficient resource utilisation in the ED and cost savings for healthcare systems

The lower the detection limit of the system, the more accurately it can measure troponin at the relevant concentrations. This is where Psyros™ single molecule counting system has a strong competitive advantage.

 

 

Why did you choose Discovery Park as your base of operations, and how has the location benefited your company?

We chose Discovery Park initially in 2020 as the four founders of Psyros were all based in Kent. We were looking for a small lab with associated office space that we could expand as the company grew. During those early years, we also wanted to be part of a community with other start-ups and benefit from the support Discovery Park offered for networking and potential fundraising.

After the acquisition of Psyros by Prolight in 2022 we expanded rapidly and now have 20 staff based here and occupy over 5x our original space.

 

 

What recent milestones or achievements is Prolight Diagnostics most proud of?

The product development of the Psyros™ system has been progressing at speed over the last few years leading to many achievements that we’re very proud of.

Our plan is to develop and finalise our platform all the way to a commercial POC system that is ready for clinical validation by the end of 2024.

Key milestones have included proof of performance for our high sensitive troponin assay in whole blood down in the single digit ng/L range, gaining our ISO13485 accreditation and selecting external partners for the instrument and the cartridge manufacture.

Receiving a prestigious NIHR i4i Product Development Award (PDA) early this year for £1.26M was a great achievement and is external validation of the utility of our unique technology. The grant which is in collaboration with among others, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, and King’s College London will help support the final stages of product development through to launch. This includes pilot manufacturing of instruments, initial clinical studies with patient samples, technical file submission and set-up of a patient advisory group.

 

 

How does Prolight Diagnostics stay ahead of the curve in the rapidly evolving field of diagnostics?

Our unique technology opens the possibility of developing new POC tests in a wide range of clinical areas that were previously only possible in specialised laboratories.

Some examples of possible future clinical areas are neuropathology (dementia, traumatic brain injuries), immune system dysfunction (sepsis, autoimmune diseases) and rapid virus detection such as Covid.

 

 

What does the future look like for Prolight Diagnostics, and what exciting developments can we expect to see in the coming years?

We are now ready to initiate studies on both banked clinical samples, and fresh clinical samples in UK hospitals. This includes, as part of our i4i PDA award, testing the Psyros™ high sensitivity troponin assay at St Thomas’ Hospital in London with patient blood samples.

These pre-clinical studies are designed to precede and de-risk our full clinical performance study planned for early 2025. This large performance study will validate the system and generate data for regulatory approval in Europe. The launch of our first product, the Psyros™ high sensitivity troponin assay, will follow in 2026.

Troponin is only the start, Psyros™ is a platform technology capable of measuring many other biomarkers in blood. The unique technology and multiplexing capabilities will make it possible to test a range of biomarkers with high sensitivity and accuracy on a single POC instrument.

Two flourishing life sciences companies, A4P and Logical Biological, both based at UK science park, Discovery Park in Kent, have been honoured with the King’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade.

They are two of 252 organisations nationally recognised with a prestigious King’s Award for Enterprise, across four categories – International Trade, Innovation, Sustainable Development and Promoting Opportunity (through Social Mobility).

It comes a year after eXroid, also based at Discovery Park, was awarded a King’s Award for Innovation for their work in developing a treatment for haemorrhoid sufferers.

A4P is a scientific consultancy specialising in bioanalytical and biosample project management, biomarker strategy and logistics solutions in support of clinical research around the world. A4P recently joined Texas-based LabConnect, forming a combined international team which brings an unparalleled breadth and depth of technical and scientific expertise to help clients successfully achieve pre clinical and clinical trial objectives sooner.

A4P was founded in 2012 and has been located at Discovery Park since inception, being one of the first tenants to move into Innovation House. All original A4P Directors had previously worked for Pfizer, located at Discovery Park.

Logical Biological specialise in providing human serum, plasma, swabs, tissues, PBMCs and other biospecimens for diagnostics and therapeutic research and development. They supply bulk volumes or clinical samples from diseased and healthy patients from donor centres and blood banks around the globe.

Jane Kennedy, Chief Business Officer at Discovery Park, said: “Having a trio of King’s Award winners based at Discovery Park highlights the incredible innovation that is happening right here in Kent and the boost to the UK economy from having a thriving life science community with state-of-the-art labs, modern offices and manufacturing facilities.

“Home to over 160 companies, Discovery Park is a well established hub with a growing tenant community of dynamic start-ups through to global corporations. We are extremely proud of our tenants and having three King’s Award winners based here is testament to the incredible work that takes place daily.”

The King’s Awards for Enterprise programme, now in its 58th year, is the most highly regarded business award in the country, with successful organisations able to use the esteemed King’s Awards Emblem for the next five years.

Businesses are visited throughout the year by His Majesty’s lord-lieutenants to receive their awards, along with an official certificate and commemorative crystal trophy. King’s Award recipients are also able to fly a King’s Awards flag at their main office and use the emblem on marketing materials.

Logical Biological are excited to share a milestone in their journey at Discovery Park. Their relentless dedication to customer centricity and unwavering commitment to quality has led to them securing 148th spot in the prestigious “FT 1000: Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies” listing.

The “FT 1000” list, created in collaboration with Statista, shines a spotlight on the European companies that have shown extraordinary growth. The ranking is determined by analysing the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in revenue from 2019 to 2022. In a list that is dominated by IT, Software, Construction and Energy/ Utility companies, Logical Biological is proud to be leading the way for science.

Read the full release here.

Written by Joel Petch, Senior Lecturer and Academic Lead at the Kent and Medway Medical School, and Dr Andrew Westwood, Consultant Neurologist at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust. 

 

Humans, like all animals, sleep and we spend a third of our lives doing it; yet only recently have we started to take its importance seriously. It is as fundamental as eating, drinking, and breathing. It helps both our physical and mental health. We continue to learn more and more about the purpose of sleep, and still do not fully understand it, but here are some things we do know about it.

In the last few decades, we have come to realise its importance in consolidating learning and memory formation. The nerves in our brain fire slower and synchronously during sleep, without having to worry about what’s going on in the world around us. It gives our brain the chance to process everything that has occurred during wakefulness and restore our bodies in preparation for the day ahead.

Sleep also has a role of cleaning out the waste products and toxins that accumulate in our brains, and only in the last decade have we discovered that we have a special system called the glymphatic system. This system expands during sleep and appears to help filter the brain of waste products. It’s thought that disruption to this process may be involved within several brain disorders.

Skipping a few hours of sleep for more social media time has its consequences. Lack of sleep disrupts our metabolism and you might notice you are more peckish after a bad night of sleep. This has a knock-on effect of piling on the pounds. It’s commonplace for fitness advice now to highlight how important sleep is – it’s not what you actively do on a treadmill or lifting weights, but we can help reach our goals by allocating enough time for sleep.

We’ve all experienced a bad night of sleep and sometimes people around us can tell – we may become more irritable, moody, and find it more difficult to concentrate on what we are doing. It’s clear that sleep is of critical importance, and worth remembering that a happy brain is a well-rested brain. So, we’ve established the importance of adequate quantity of good quality sleep, lets explore what can be done to enhance your sleep.

While there is no singular approach to ensure you have a restful sleep, there are several adaptations which offer an accumulative effect. These adaptations- referred to as sleep hygiene- are a range of actions which promote sleep and offset wakefulness. Lifestyle adaptations are preferable to medications, particularly in the medium and longer terms.

 

Some considerations to avoid to adversely impact upon sleep:

Avoidance of napping during the day- it may be tempting to have that afternoon snooze, but this will enhance wakefulness at night and eat into your daily sleep quota [which, ideally, we would like to achieve at night].

While many of us feel the need to rely upon coffee to get us from day to day, if you have trouble sleeping, it would be wise to reduce the caffeine in the afternoon and evening. Caffeine, one of the worlds most popular drugs, blocks adenosine within the brain, preventing drowsiness and triggering a temporary sense of alertness. It’s noteworthy that other evening treats also contain caffeine including energy drinks, tea (black and green) and chocolate.

Immediately prior to bed, you would do well to avoid the use of your mobile phones. Social media activities may well lead to a heightened sense of arousal, and the blue light emitted from the screen also impacts upon your ability to sleep. This light, due to its short light wave, can delay the secretion of the sleep hormone, melatonin. This comes from the pineal gland via activation of the superchiasmatic nucleus, our own internal body clock located within the

hypothalamus. So, in the interest of a good sleep, waking feeling refreshed, and best able to engage with your day, please do avoid the pinging of social media prior to bed.

Aristotle postulated that ‘a person awakes from sleep when digestion is complete’, while this is contested, in a nod to Aristotelianism, please do avoid heavy meals before sleeping. Acid reflux and indigestion is a common cause of disrupted sleep. Alcohol is another substance to avoid, this may feel helpful with regards to onset of asleep, but any subsequent sleep is likely to be fragmented. In addition, there this is evidence that alcohol induced sleep also adversely impacts dreaming, a period of sleep critical in memory consolidation and glymphatic clearance.

 

Here are some things you can actively do:

It’s important to develop and maintain a regular sleep routine, this includes timings and patterns of activities. Try to sleep and rise at the same time each day. It’s most important to keep that same wake-up time as this is usually easier for us to do than to guarantee we can sleep at the same time. Ensure you don’t go to bed earlier after a bad night of sleep, keep the same routine regardless. A warm and relaxing bath may also be the perfect approach to prepare to sleep for some, usually 60-90minutes before intending to sleep. Further positive actions include having a sleep-promoting environment- a space which is comfort, quiet, and at a temperature that is lower than during the day. Implementing these actions will have an accumulative effect and heighten the likelihood of a restful night. However, if you are finding it difficult to sleep, be reassured that this is a common, albeit frustrating, circumstance. Further practical advice can be found here: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/sleep-and-tiredness/how-to-get-to-sleep/

The sold-out event brought together a dynamic group of NHS leaders, clinicians, patients, academics and innovators at Kent and Medway Medical School

 

Kent & Medway’s first ever Women’s Health Innovation Summit took place last week (6th March), bringing together local leaders to revolutionise women’s health and close the gender health gap. 

 

The sold-out summit attracted 130 women’s health experts and was held at The Pears Building at the Kent and Medway Medical School, in Canterbury. The Kent & Medway Women’s Health Summit marks the start of a partnership between NHS Kent and Medway, Kent and Medway Medical School (KMMS), Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex (Health Innovation KSS) and leading research and development site, Discovery Park. 

 

Key speakers included Dr. Kate Langford, Chief Medical Officer at NHS Kent & Medway ICB, Dr. Maryann Ferreux, Medical Director, Health Innovation KSS, Professor Chris Holland, Founding Dean, KMMS, Jane Kennedy, Chief Business Officer at Discovery Park and Natasha Walton, Deputy Director Digital Diagnostics & Transformation at NHS England. 

 

Dr Kate Langford, Chief Medical Officer and Women’s Health Champion for NHS Kent and Medway, said: “We’ve heard some very difficult stories about women’s experiences and the data shows that despite living longer, the average woman spends nearly a quarter of her life in poor health, compared with a fifth of men. Partnership is key to change, and Kent and Medway’s first ever Women’s Health Summit demonstrates our commitment to improving the health of women.”

 

Speakers highlighted that addressing women’s health and closing the gender health gap requires a multifaceted approach that acknowledges the complexities of individuals’ experiences. Intersectionality, which considers how various social identities intersect and shape these experiences, is crucial to this.

 

Menopause, mental health and cardiovascular care were topics of key focus at the event, highlighted as areas of unmet need, with alarming statistics revealing that women are twice as likely to die of a heart attack compared to men. Furthermore, a lack of research and data is a driver for the gender health gap, with five times more research conducted on erectile dysfunction, which affects 19% of men, than on premenstrual syndrome, which affects 90% of women. 

 

The aim of the new partnership, the Kent & Medway Innovation Hub, is to create a vibrant innovation ecosystem that fosters breakthrough ideas, empowers people and our workforce, and positively impacts the health and well-being of individuals and communities. The learnings from this event, including the findings from the breakout sessions on menopause, mental health and cardiovascular care, will play a key role in codesigning the hub and better understanding the problems that need to be solved in the system. The findings will also inform the creation of a women’s health hub in Kent & Medway, as part of the national women’s health strategy.

 

Also launched at the summit was a special edition of Discovery Park’s growth programme for early stage businesses, ‘Discovery Spark’. This offers support for new businesses working in FemTech and women’s health, with tailored mentoring and learning. Open for applications now, accepted companies will compete to win a support package worth over £50K, including 1 year of lab or office space at Discovery Park, alongside invaluable support from healthcare partners, Barclays Eagle Labs and six specialist prize partners. 

 

Summit speaker Dr MaryAnn Ferreux, Medical Director at Health Innovation KSS, said: “Collaboration will be key to designing and delivering revolutionary healthcare for women. The summit showcased the vibrant healthcare innovation ecosystem in Kent and Medway, from students and clinicians, to academics, to start-ups like Adora and Feebris and big companies like AWS. Discovery Spark is the next step in this journey, providing valuable support to promising start-ups improving health outcomes for women.” 

 

To enter Discovery Spark, start-up companies must be working in FemTech or addressing Women’s Health with a demonstrated proof of concept and have raised less than £1 million in investment. The programme is open to both male and female founders. The deadline for applications is 5th April, with the next cohort beginning on 21st May. 

 

Applicants should enter on the Discovery Park website, which also includes terms and conditions. https://discovery-park.co.uk/lp/discovery-spark/

The Special Edition of the ‘Discovery Spark’ growth programme was announced at Kent & Medway Women’s Health Innovation Summit

Discovery Park, Kent’s thriving life science community, has launched a special edition of their growth and support programme, Discovery Spark, for start-ups in FemTech and Women’s Health. 

 

The programme was unveiled at Kent & Medway Women’s Health Innovation Summit, which brought together NHS leaders, clinicians, patients, academics and innovators to revolutionise women’s health and close the gender health gap. The event highlighted menopause, mental health and cardiovascular care as areas of unmet need, with women twice as likely to die after a heart attack compared to men. Despite living longer, the average woman spends nearly a quarter of her life in poor health compared with a fifth of men. A lack of research and data is a driver for the gender health gap, with five times more research conducted on erectile dysfunction, which affects 19% of men, than on premenstrual syndrome, which affects 90% of women. 

 

Igniting the growth of early-stage businesses solving women’s health challenges, the special edition Discovery Spark programme is now open for applications. The programme offers tailored mentoring and support for start-ups, preparing founders for success in investment pitches. Companies will compete to win a support package worth over £50K, including 1 year of lab or office space at Discovery Park, alongside invaluable support from healthcare partners, Barclays Eagle Labs and six specialist prize partners. 

 

Discovery Spark is led by Dr Renos Savva, Head of Innovation at Discovery Park and a recognised scientist, entrepreneur and venture development lead. Speaking about the new programme, Renos said: “Discovery Spark gives early-stage start-ups the tools for healthy business foundations, providing expert advice and personal development, all designed with securing investment in mind. The UK has the largest female gender health gap in the G20, so it’s important to supercharge exciting businesses aiming to solve challenges in female health.”

 

Organised as three immersive sessions held between May and July, Discovery Spark takes place at Discovery Park and includes overnight accommodation for those taking part. Each session lasts for two-days, covering people, teams and brand, presentation and communication, and business metrics and markets.  

 

Dr MaryAnn Ferreux, Medical Director at Health Innovation KSS, a partner of the FemTech and Women’s Health Special Edition Discovery Spark, said: “Collaboration and partnership will be key to designing and delivering revolutionary healthcare for women. The summit showcased the vibrant healthcare innovation ecosystem in Kent and Medway, from students and clinicians, to academics, to start-ups like Adora and Feebris and big companies like AWS. Discovery Spark is the next step in this journey, providing valuable support to promising start-ups improving health outcomes for women.” 

 

To enter, start-up companies must be working in FemTech or addressing Women’s Health with a demonstrated proof of concept and have raised less than £1 million in investment. The programme is open to both male and female founders. The deadline for applications is 5th April, with the next cohort beginning on 21st May. 

 

Applicants should enter on the Discovery Park website, which also includes terms and conditions.

https://discovery-park.co.uk/lp/discovery-spark/

 

Discovery Park is committed to supporting women in business and innovative organisations transforming women’s health. Contact Discovery Park for more information on business support and investment opportunities currently available.

Neobe Therapeutics, a pioneering synthetic biology startup at the forefront of immuno-oncology innovation, is thrilled to announce the successful closure of a $2.34M financing round. This significant financial milestone was achieved with the support of new investors Pioneer Group and 2048 Ventures, alongside existing backers Deep Science Ventures*, Cancer Research Horizons*, and Discovery Park Ventures. Additionally, the round received a non-dilutive grant award from UKRI’s Innovate UK Future Economy Investor Partnership Programme.

 

Neobe has built a synthetic biology platform to engineer safe microbial strains to disrupt the microenvironment of solid tumours, without affecting healthy tissues. These programmable microscopic trojan horses enable immunotherapy responses by breaking down barriers to immune infiltration locally. Since its inception Neobe has successfully engineered two differentiated proprietary products aimed at enabling immunotherapy efficacy in patients with colorectal, pancreatic and breast cancer, with demonstrated pre-clinical efficacy.

Neobe was founded by Pedro Correa de Sampaio and Annelise Soulier in 2021, from a venture creation alliance between Deep Science Ventures and Cancer Research Horizons established to help founder-type scientists build high-impact ventures in oncology, using DSV’s proven approach to ideation-based innovation. Neobe was created specifically to address the key issue of existing barriers created by the local microenvironment of solid tumours which prevent the infiltration of cancer reactive immune cells. This “immune exclusion” is a key contributing factor in why about 80% of patients with solid tumours still do not respond to life changing immunotherapies.

 

This latest injection of capital will accelerate the development of Neobe’s lead programme, combining extensive pre-clinical safety and efficacy studies with initial regulatory validation.

 

“We are immensely grateful for the continued backing of our existing investors and thrilled to have Pioneer Group and 2048 Ventures join Neobe’s journey”, said Pedro Correa de Sampaio, CEO and co-founder of Neobe. “The trust and support of all our investors as well as Innovate UK truly validates our innovative approach, harnessing synthetic biology to build safer and more effective strategies to enable therapeutic efficacy in cancer patients. Our mission continues to be to transform cancer treatment through engineered live biotherapeutics, and with this support, we are one step closer to making that a reality.”

 

This investment will be instrumental in advancing Neobe Therapeutics’ research and development efforts, expanding its talented team, and bringing its novel therapies closer to clinical development. It will be accompanied by an expansion of Neobe’s board of directors, with Julie Wolf from 2048 Ventures and Imelda Juniarsih from Pioneer Group joining as investor directors. Neobe’s board is led by Keith Blundy, former CEO of Cancer Research Technology and STORM Therapeutics, who joined as non-executive director and chairman in 2023.

 

Imelda Juniarsih, Investment Director at Pioneer Group said “Supporting Neobe in addressing previously untreatable cancers is truly exciting. Their pioneering approach holds immense promise in broadening access to immunotherapies, potentially transforming treatment and importantly preserving life for many patients. We’re honoured to welcome Neobe to our portfolio and recognise the pivotal role they play in advancing this vital mission of making cancer treatment more accessible.”

 

Julie Wolf from 2048 Ventures said “At 2048 Ventures, we look to invest in platform plays that solve huge healthcare challenges. Neobe’s stromal remodeling microbes represent the best application of a synbio platform, which is using biology to engineer life-saving therapies for cancer patients. We are excited to partner with Neobe and join their mission in unlocking immunooncology treatments for all patients.”

 

“Neobe is on a mission to unlock the full potential of immuno-oncology therapeutics,” said Tony Hickson, Chief Business Officer at Cancer Research Horizons. “Since its inception from one of our venture creation programmes, we have been impressed by the entrepreneurial activities of the Neobe team. We are excited to continue to work with Neobe’s innovative team to support the company’s next phase of growth and realize its full potential to deliver much needed therapeutic solutions for patients.”

Paula Rogers-Brown, Head of Communities & Ecosystem Engagement, Connect: Health Tech, shares her perspective on the challenges facing the UK health tech community and how with collaboration and a unified voice, we can overcome these to build the UK into a thriving health tech hub and life science superpower.

 

What are the major challenges facing health tech businesses in the UK?

 

The UK’s health tech ecosystem is rather fragmented, stemming from a positive trend for organic growth. As a consequence, this has fostered poor interconnectivity. It is well known that interdisciplinary collaboration is key for the success of most innovative industries, and this is just as true for health tech. To facilitate more collaboration, we need to overcome this fragmentation and build more connections. Locally, removing siloes will help complementary teams interact, but this should not be done at the expense of pan-regional collaboration as we need to harness the wealth of expertise available throughout the UK for long term growth.

At the interface of health, technology, engineering and AI, health tech faces its own language barriers: clinicians are unfamiliar with common tech terms and technology specialists are untrained in medical terminology. This challenge is not insurmountable, but it is easy to underestimate the time frames needed to overcome this and work well together on product development and commercialisation.

Another challenge is a lack of knowledge around entrepreneurship in the research community. There are incredible scientists and clinicians with potentially transformational ideas, but without a knowledge of routes to progress their innovation, and an understanding of aspects like IP, commercialisation, funding and regulation, their ideas may never reach the public. It is therefore vital that we share knowledge and resources about where these entrepreneurs can start, what do they need and where can they find more information?

To improve navigation across the ecosystem, Connect: Health Tech proactively aids these connections, collaborating with innovation hubs like Discovery Park, and forming a national network where ideas and information can be shared.

 

What do we need to do to support the UK health tech industry?

 

We need to build an industry with a porosity in knowledge exchange. Fellowships could be a good way to encourage this area – not just academic but industrial too – as they can be used to foster knowledge exchange between industries and different locations.

It’s also important that we invest in the infrastructure to develop both physical and digital communities that support these connections. Events and in-person connections form a cornerstone of all collaboration. Science parks like Discovery Park provide an ideal environment to bring together a diverse mix of stakeholders including academia, clinical innovators and industry for knowledge exchange and interdisciplinary innovation. We’ve also learned over the past few years that online communities can provide significant additional benefits, allowing these collaborations to continue between different locations in between these events, enabling existing ideas to develop and new opportunities to be identified.

I would also draw attention to the visibility of role models within the health tech community. We have an incredibly diverse population with different healthcare experiences and health technology has the potential to make real changes for everyone, but if the diversity of the population is not reflected in those developing innovative research and technologies, then solutions will have a limited market. To build this diversity into research and leadership teams, we need to highlight role models that are already there – after all, you can’t be what you can’t see.

 

Investment and development have often been targeted towards certain areas of the UK. Are there risks in focusing development within specific regions?

 

Co-location is a really powerful tool when it comes to sharing ideas and building a rich talent pool, but this shouldn’t be done at the expense of collaboration elsewhere. The UK punches above its weight scientifically. We are a relatively small country geographically and with the right networks, both regionally and nationally, we could strengthen our impact and attractiveness.

Another important consideration is ensuring research and innovation development is inclusive. Different regions within the UK have different demographics and we need to understand and incorporate that into our recruitment strategies. There is no one route for developing a new innovative med tech device, for example, and the health tech ecosystem needs to embrace employees from all backgrounds. That way we can be sure we are not missing opportunities to harness and develop talent on our doorstep which can lead to rich innovations we can all benefit from.

Science and research parks have a really important role in doing this as they are directly embedded in their local communities and can therefore work closely with schools, colleges and universities to promote STEM, the opportunities available, and develop their own talent pipeline.

As an example, Discovery Park provides a thriving community to build connections and exchange knowledge, including a Skills Hub that brings together the expertise of Kent Universities, colleges and industry to help businesses collaborate to overcome skills shortages. Adding in an online collaboration hub to these can extend those opportunities across the four nations – and internationally.

 

The NHS is a unique resource for the UK, what are the opportunities that this can bring?

 

At Connect: Health Tech, we support clinician-led innovation. The UK’s clinician base is a unique resource that has a truly in-depth understanding of the healthcare needs of our population. Through our community and digital platform, we are proactively working with clinicians to develop a suite of resources that supports their innovation journey. Supporting innovation from this community to ensure we are at the forefront of producing solutions that meet actual needs is really important to us at Connect: Health Tech.

Working with local NHS teams can be a huge asset to technology developers to ensure their technology is solving a genuine need. It can also result in superior product development by incorporating relevant data sets and ensuring optimisations are made with input from clinicians and patients alike. Research campuses like Discovery Park leverage relationships with their local NHS Trusts to facilitate collaborations with industry to drive purposeful innovation.

 

What other opportunities do you see for the UK health tech industry in the next five years and how can we help to deliver these?

 

Pan-regional collaboration is a fantastic opportunity that we are seeing a real shift towards, and we need to continue to develop this to see more of this kind of collaboration at scale. We’ve already seen the formation of a cross-regional innovation cluster between Cambridge and Manchester which will facilitate the sharing of expertise between these two knowledge-rich communities. Building relationships with other knowledge exchange hubs like Discovery Park allows further development of pan-regional collaboration to unlock even more opportunities for growth.

I was delighted that the government recently accepted all the recommendations from the independent review of university spin-out companies, including providing greater understanding of entrepreneurial skills in the academic setting. There is huge potential still to be realised from our wealth of successful academic institutions and we need to develop this potential by providing support, advice and training for founders wishing to commercialise their discoveries. Initiatives like the Eagle Lab at Discovery Park can provide fantastic support for fledgling businesses through programmes, mentorship and investor networking.

 

What do we need to do to ensure these opportunities aren’t missed?

 

We need to invest! The opportunities are clear, but they require investment, and these investments require some risk-taking on experimental technologies. We also need to invest in developing the right infrastructure, taking our communities with us through enablers like Connect: Health Tech, and building strong foundations for growth, as creating a solid health tech ecosystem reduces the risk of missed opportunities.

 

Paula Rogers-Brown

Head of Communities & Ecosystem Engagement, Connect: Health Tech

University of Cambridge

Paula leads on the strategic development and management of Connect: Health Tech, an interdisciplinary community of practice for health tech professionals bringing together a diverse range of stakeholders to build and integrate a thriving business and enterprise community.