A Newcastle biotech business has secured a milestone £1.1m funding boost to ramp up its pioneering work.
Nanovery has been developing nanorobots to help detect deadly diseases like cancer sooner since its launch in 2018, when co-founders Dr Jurek Kozyra and Roma Galloway wanted to launch a more efficient diagnostics solution for serious diseases, to bring more regular testing to clinicians and patients.
The firm’s platform of analytical tools are used in the development of a new class of drugs known as RNA therapeutics – a market potentially worth $20bn by 2030 – which are opening the door to addressing previously untreatable diseases, including several cancers.
RNA therapies offer advantages including the ability to design and develop new drugs more quickly than conventional methods. However, the stability of RNA molecules and the ability to deliver them to their intended site are among current challenges in the treatment.
Testing technologies need to be carried out quickly but they are complex, expensive, time consuming and require high technical ability. However, Nanovery has advanced testing technology to the potential for more drugs to reach the clinic more quickly. As a result, it has already closed R&D deals with some household names.
Northstar Ventures has now backed the Biosphere based company with investment from two of its funds; £450,000 from the North East Innovation Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund, and £195,000 from the Northstar EIS Growth Fund, alongside £500,000 from fellow investors Smartlink. The business has also been awarded a grant via Innovate UK’s investor partnership programme.
Jurek Kozyra, CEO and co-founder Nanovery, said: “Securing this investment is a significant milestone for Nanovery and positions us to make a real difference in how next generation drugs - specifically ASOs and siRNA - are developed and tested. Nanovery’s technology makes the testing process simpler, quicker, and more reliable. And we couldn’t make it any easier: just add our nanorobots directly to the samples, measure fluorescence, and get results - bam, bam, bam - enabling drug developers to rapidly and reliably perform bioanalysis.
“We’re thrilled by the growing enthusiasm from our investors, which is reflected in the bold strides we’re making to commercialise our technology with leading global industry players, including top pharmaceutical companies. We’re determined to keep accelerating the growth and adoption of our cutting-edge nanotechnology platform, believing it will help bring the most promising, life-changing therapies to patients faster. We are incredibly thankful to all the investors who have supported us on this journey.”
Alex Buchan, investment director, Northstar Ventures, said: “The technology which Nanovery has produced is incredibly promising. It can address real industry issues easily and cheaply in the fast-moving arena of diagnostics and drug development.
“We have backed Nanovery from very early on and are proud to support them in their work to develop novel therapeutics. Nanovery is one of a number of companies in the North East that are at the cutting edge of the use of synthetic biology to find new solutions to seemingly intractable problems in the development of new patient therapies.”
