Funding for clinical trial of trachea replacement technology
Liverpool, UK - September 25 2014: Videregen Ltd, an expert in organ regeneration and replacement, has raised significant investment funding of £1.2m from a consortium led by SPARK Impact1, supported by London Business Angels and other investors. The proceeds will be used for the further development of the company’s lead product for trachea replacement, which is expected to enter clinical trials next year with the aim of being the world’s first commercially available tissue engineered stem cell organ replacement product.
Following its £900,000 investment, Dr Marc d’Abbadie of SPARK Impact, which manages the North West Fund for Biomedical, joins the Board, as does lead angel Dr Robert Hollamby of London Business Angels. In addition to the clinical trial, the funds raised will be used for manufacturing scale-up and corporate development. Following the investment, Videregen has relocated to Liverpool Science Park, where it has recruited new staff to drive the development of its projects.
Videregen is focused on generating new products to address the chronic shortage of organs for transplantation2. Formed in 2011 as a spin-out from Northwick Park Institute of Medical Research, it uses its proprietary technology to produce biological scaffolds to which the patient’s own stem cells are added, creating a bespoke organ replacement. This potentially avoids the problems associated with traditional transplantation methods such as availability of donor organs, compatibility and rejection. The company’s research is initially focused on trachea and bowel disease.
A tracheal replacement consortium led by Videregen was awarded £1.9m by Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board) last year, for progression of the promising clinical prototype through development and an early clinical trial. The trial will focus on severe structural airway disease, a life-threatening condition whose initial EU/US market is thought to be worth more than £70m pa. The consortium includes the NHS Blood and Transplant centre in Speke, UCL, the Cell Therapy Catapult and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.
Dr Steve Bloor, CEO of Videregen, said ‘We are delighted to have received strong support from SPARK Impact, London Business Angels and others, and we welcome Marc and Robert to the Board. They join at an exciting time in Videregen’s development, as we progress towards clinical validation of our platform technology.’
Dr Marc d’Abbadie, investment director at SPARK Impact, said, ‘The technology developed by Videregen to make functional organs for transplant is expected to show clear benefits as a potentially globally disruptive form of regenerative medicine. SPARK Impact is proud to be helping it to achieve its ambitions, increase the quality and length of a patient’s life, and reduce healthcare costs’.
--ENDS--
1 Today’s press release from SPARK Impact can be found here
2 As an indication of the unmet medical need this represents, the difference in the US between the organ transplant waiting list (August 2014) and the number of patients who had an organ transplant in 2013 was 94,233. In the UK in April 2014 the active organ transplant waiting list was 7,005 patients.
For more information, please contact:
Videregen Ltd
Dr Steve Bloor, CEO
+44 (0) 151 482 9350
Emma Palmer Foster, Strategic Communications Consultant
+44 (0) 7880 787185
emma@videregen.com or info@videregen.com
SPARK Impact
Lou Clancy
+44 (0) 151 705 3416
louise@sparkimpact.co.uk
The North West Fund
Lizzie Dibble
+44 (0) 1925 443 767
lizzie.dibble@thenorthwestfund.co.uk
Active Profile (for SPARK Impact)
Claire Gallagher
claire.gallagher@activeprofile.co.uk
Notes to editors
About Videregen
Videregen is a start-up regenerative medicine company created to develop and exploit many years of experience and know-how in the field of tissue decellularisation, regenerative technologies and translation from laboratory to market. The company’s platform technology (developed by Northwick Park Institute for Medical Research) uses decellularised organ scaffolds seeded with the patient’s own cells to create non-immunogenic, regenerative bespoke organ replacements with a focus on key unmet clinical needs in the area of organ transplantation and replacement which represents a substantial burden to healthcare finances. For more information please go to www.videregen.com
About NPIMR
Northwick Park Institute for Medical Research (NPIMR) is a medical research charity, affiliated to UCL. We are dedicated to the acquisition and dissemination, by research, education and publishing, of ethical research based data for the benefit of patients both nationally and internationally. Our expertise is specifically in the invention, development, pre-clinical and safety evaluation of novel tissue scaffolds and their rapid progress to clinical use.www.npimr.org
The North West Fund for Biomedical and SPARK Impact
The £30m North West Fund for Biomedical, managed by SPARK Impact, is a sub-fund of The North West Fund, which is provided by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), to supply equity funding to small and medium sized enterprises in the North West of England. The North West Fund for Biomedical, which was launched in February 2011, is accessible to a broad range of companies including those developing pharmaceuticals, new diagnostics and medical devices, and those working in the fields of clinical research, contract manufacturing and analytical services. It is open to companies based in, or prepared to relocate to, the North West of England, with 40% of the fund to be invested on Merseyside. The fund has received over 250 applications and made over 50 investments to date. For more information about the fund and how to applyplease visit www.thenorthwestfund.co.uk
The North West Fund
The North West Fund is a substantial evergreen investment fund established to provide debt and equity funding (from £50,000 to £2 million) to small and medium sized enterprises based in, or relocating to, the North West of England. The Fund addresses an identified gap in the lending, venture capital and private equity markets. It is one of the largest public sector funds of its kind in Europe and the largest in the UK. The North West Fund is financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) under the European Commission’s Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises Initiative – otherwise known as the JEREMIE programme. The North West Fund is the umbrella name for the six funds that are available to businesses in the form of debt, equity and quasi-equity. These funds are managed by individual fund managers. Each fund manager has a mandate to invest their allocation into the specific product or sector they manage, by 31st December 2015. The fund managers are under contract with North West Business Finance Limited (NWBF), which is a private, not for profit company, established to oversee the delivery of The North West Fund.Between December 2010 and June 2014, The North West Fund has invested over £97m in more than 285businesses. Further funding has also been earmarked to support these businesses as they grow and many more new investments are planned over 2014 and into 2015. For further information please visit www.thenorthwestfund.co.uk Please reply with ‘Unsubscribe’ in the reply box if you no longer wish to hear from us
Emma Palmer Foster
Strategic Communications Consultant
m: +44 (0)7880 787185
e:emma@videregen.com
w: www.videregen.com
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