Last checked at 13 Dec 2013 07:00
IXICO Awarded Technology Strategy Board Grant to Support the Development of Dementia Diagnosis Products
13 December 2013, IXICO plc (Ticker: IXI) ('IXICO' or the 'Company'), the brain health company, today announces that it has been awarded a Stratified Medicine Grant by the UK's innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board to provide funding to support the development of products to address the global dementia challenge.
The grant has been awarded under the Technology Strategy Board's recently launched 'Advancing In-Vivo Imaging for Stratified Medicine' competition.
For this project, a consortium led by IXICO, which includes Imperial College, London as a research partner, Medimmune Limited (the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca) and a second leading global pharmaceutical company as commercial partners, will apply a machine learning framework to a unique combination of reference data to develop a digital dementia prognosis tool. This will use commonly collected diagnostic information (including MRI scans and cognitive, functional and demographic data) to stratify patients based on their expected rate of decline. This could help with the diagnosis of dementia in the clinic and also with the enrichment of patient populations enrolled in clinical trials of investigational drugs, potentially improving the likelihood of measuring a therapeutic effect.
Several further global pharmaceutical companies have expressed interest joining the project as collaborators, and contributing clinical trial data in due course. The total value of the 24 month research project is approximately £1 million. The value of the grant is £633,962 of which £456,956 is allocated to IXICO and the remainder to Imperial College. The pharmaceutical partners and collaborators are contributing scientific resources from their R&D teams and access to data from completed clinical trials.
This brings the total grant funding secured by IXICO in the last 18 months to approximately £2.6 million of which approximately £2.4 million remains to be drawn down by IXICO.
This week the Technology Strategy Board features IXICO, the "Dementia Champions", as its Success Story www.innovateuk.org/success-stories detailing a funding story that stretches back 5 years.
Professor Derek Hill, Chief Executive of IXICO commented: "We are pleased to have been awarded this Technology Strategy Board grant. IXICO's products and services are focused on three overlapping areas within clinical trials, experimental medicine and diagnostics; the scope of this project will benefit our work in each. We look forward to working with Imperial and our commercial collaborators to develop important tools with the potential to improve clinical diagnosis of dementia and accelerate the development of effective treatments for Alzheimer's disease."
Enquiries
IXICO plc
+44 207 691 2064
Derek Hill, CEO
Charles Spicer, VP Corporate Development
Peel Hunt LLP (Nominated Adviser and broker)
+44 207 418 8900
James Steel
Vijay Barathan
Harry Florry
FTI Consulting Limited (U.K. Investor Relations)
+44 207 831 3113
John Dineen
Simon Conway
About IXICO
IXICO, the brain health company, was founded in 2004 with a mission to translate image acquisition, management and analysis technology and know-how, which the founders had developed together, into commercial products targeting the expanding area of imaging to inform decision-making during drug development. This has resulted in commercially successful products being launched in the clinical trials (Phase 0-III) and experimental medicine markets and being readied for launch into the wider clinical diagnostic market. Since incorporation, IXICO has been contracted by seven of the top 15 global pharmaceutical companies as well as leading biotechnology companies. In October 2013, IXICO plc was admitted to trading on AIM. More information is available on www.ixico.com
About the Technology Strategy Board
The Technology Strategy Board is the UK's innovation agency. Its goal is to accelerate economic growth by stimulating and supporting business-led innovation. Sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the Technology Strategy Board brings together business, research and the public sector, supporting and accelerating the development of innovative products and services to meet market needs, tackle major societal challenges and help build the future economy. For more information please visit www.innovateuk.org