Imperial Innovations Group Regulatory News (IVO)

6 Jul 2007 08:10

Imperial Innovations Group plc06 July 2007 Imperial Innovations Group plc ("Imperial Innovations") Investment in NanoBioDesign Imperial Innovations Group plc, the technology commercialisation and investmentcompany (AIM: IVO) and The Capital Fund, the £50 million Regional VentureCapital Fund for London, today announce that together they have invested£500,000 in NanoBioDesign Limited (NBD), a company developing a range oftoxicity screening systems to speed up the drug discovery process. The companywill use the funds to secure contracts with manufacturers to produce their arraytechnology, which has applications in the pharmaceutical, chemical and cosmeticsindustries. NBD is developing a new way of testing drugs on P450 liver enzymes that couldpotentially improve the safety of new medicines and reduce the costs associatedwith drug discovery. The liver acts like a chemical factory, breaking downforeign materials and allowing them to be excreted. The study of how newpharmaceuticals and other chemical agents react with P450 enzymes is critical totheir development and an area that the Food and Drug Administration hashighlighted as being in need of innovation. NBD's new high throughput device is based on research by Professor GianfrancoGilardi, co-founder and Research Director of NBD, in the Faculty of NaturalSciences at Imperial College London. It will enable tests on drug reaction withthe liver to be conducted faster and with a higher degree of accuracy than iscurrently possible. In addition, it will become possible to undertake rapidtesting on generic variants of enzymes and study drug-drug interactions, inorder to avoid one drug cancelling out the effects of another drug, which couldresult in unwanted side effects. NBD's unique approach has already attracted the attention of a number ofpharmaceutical companies and contract research organisations with whom it is indiscussion about the co-development of this novel technology. Dr. Steve Collins, co-founder and CEO of NanoBioDesign, said "NBD has reached a crucial stage of market development and this financing roundwill allow the Company to develop its platform on an industrial scale." Susan Searle, Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Innovations said "Our investment emphasises our commitment to the development of NBD'stechnology. We are confident that the investment will accelerate the growth ofNBD and help provide a valuable new tool for the drug discovery process." Ian Cameron, Investment Director at The Capital Fund, said: "The Capital Fund is pleased to provide NDB with investment to develop its novelscreening technology that will pay a key role in new drug development. The maincauses of drug failures are safety and lack of effectiveness. NBD's disruptivetechnology has the potential to reduce both of these problems by creating agreatly improved test for drug toxicity and drug-drug interaction. Steve Collinsand his management team bring substantial technical and business skills to theventure and are well-placed to exploit the significant opportunity to improvethe drug discovery process." -Ends- For more information contact: Imperial InnovationsSusan Searle, Chief Executive Officer +44 (0)20 7594 6591Lucy Ahfong, Marketing Communications Executive +44 (0)20 7594 6644 M:CommunicationsPatrick d'Ancona / Eleanor Williamson +44 (0)20 7153 1539The Capital Fund/NanoBioDesign Limited Margaret Henry, PR Manager +44 (0)1865 811199Email: m.henry@oxin.co.uk JPMorgan Cazenove (broker to ImperialInnovations) +44(0)20 7588 2828Steve Baldwin Notes to Editors About NanoBioDesign Ltd NanoBioDesign is using a patented protein engineering approach to allow the P450enzymes from the human liver to be attached to electrodes. The resultingplatform allows a quick and direct assessment of P450 - drug interactions. The concept incorporates protein engineering technology developed by ProfessorGianfranco Gilardi at Imperial College London. The company has recently completed the construction, immobilisation andelectrochemistry of the major liver P450 enzymes, 3A4, 2D6, 2C9, 2C19 and 2E1.This will enable the rapid testing of new chemical species to determine theirpotential effects on these important enzymes and will open the way for thegreater use of in vitro testing in drug development. The basic approach adoptedfor the wild type enzymes has been extended to include five allelic variants of2D6 and 2C9. The results from which, are of interest to the emergingpharmacogenetics market. Early testing with a range of substrates has shownthat the system is highly reproducible and the kinetic data produced is in linewith that found in the literature for membrane bound enzymes. In July 2005, NBD completed a funding round of £720,000, including investmentsfrom Imperial Innovations and NPI Ventures Ltd, which enabled the company todevelop their first product a P450 testing tool based upon electrochemicaldetection. This technology will help improve the drug discovery process byrapidly and reliably assessing the toxicity of drugs at very early stages inthe drug development process, thus reducing both the cost of new drug discoveryand improving the safety profile of drugs progressing to trials and the market Website: www.nanobiodesign.com About Imperial Innovations Imperial Innovations is one of the UK's leading technology transfer andcommercialisation companies. The company was founded in 1986 and its ordinaryshares admitted to trading on the AIM Market of London Stock Exchange plc inJuly 2006, raising £26 million. The company's integrated approach encompassesthe identification of ideas, protection of intellectual property, developmentand licensing of technology and formation, incubation and investment intechnology businesses. A wide range of technologies are commercialised withinthe areas of healthcare, energy, environment and emerging technology trends. Based at Imperial College London, the company has established equity holdings in70 technology businesses and has completed 116 commercial agreements. ImperialInnovations also commercialises technologies originating from outside ImperialCollege through incubation contracts with the Carbon Trust and WRAP and hasrelationships with a number of multinational corporations including BAE Systems. Imperial Innovations has invested in a range of technology businesses, includingThe Acrobot Company Limited, BioCeramic Therapeutics Limited, Cardiak Limited,Circassia Holdings Limited, deltaDOT Limited, Equinox Pharma Limited, FutureWaves PTE Limited, HeliSwirl Technologies Limited, InforSense Limited, IXICOLimited, Lontra Limited, Midaz Lasers Limited, NanoBioDesign Limited, NexeonLimited, NovaThera Limited, PolyTherics Ltd, QuantaSol Limited, Thiakis Limitedand Veryan Medical Limited. Imperial Innovations currently holds shares in four technology businesses nowlisted on AIM including the fuel cell company, Ceres Power plc. www.imperialinnovations.co.uk About the Capital Fund Launched in 2002, The Capital Fund is a £50 million venture capital fund whichbacks fast-growing, small and medium-sized enterprises in Greater London. Todate, the Fund has made over 50 investments in London-based companies and wasnamed Regional Venture Capital Fund of the Year at the Investor Allstars Awards2005. Initial investments can be up to £250,000 and the Fund can invest a further£250,000 after six months or more. In some circumstances, alongside other newinvestors, the Fund can follow on its investments with up to £5m in total in asingle company. The Capital Fund is the largest of the nine Regional VentureCapital Funds and has a mixture of public and private sector investors.For further information: www.thecapitalfund.co.uk The Capital Fund is managed by YFM Venture Finance Limited, which is authorisedand regulated by the Financial Services Authority and part of the YFM Group.The YFM Group provides investment capital and business development services toSMEs throughout the UK. It currently has £280m in funds and consultancycontracts under management, with over 90 employees. For further information:www.yfmgroup.co.uk This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange