Source: Rex

Driving innovation: challenges too big for big pharma can be tackled in a university setting, a cardiovascular specialist says

One London university is turning the traditional model for exploiting discoveries made at the lab bench on its head.

Instead of spinning out a new company from an institution with the hope of commercialising their research, a group at University College London has spun the commercial know-how needed to build a successful life sciences business into the walls of its institution.

Magnus Life Science, as the company is known, is developing a series of therapies that centre on a better understanding of blood flow in the body. In doing so it hopes to find new treatments for diseases.

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It is the brainchild of John Martin, professor of cardiovascular medicine at UCL, who owns the intellectual property to the suite of innovations that the company hopes to commercialise.

¡°The key idea was to reverse the relationship between university and industry,¡± said Professor Martin at the company¡¯s launch event on 29 January. ¡°For too long we have asked industry what can we do for them, as contractors.¡±

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With Magnus, Professor Martin hopes to ¡°drive the agenda towards industry¡± and take the innovations right through to the stage of being tested for efficacy using the National Health Service before handing them over to pharmaceutical companies.

Products include a biomagnetic and biodegradable stent, a therapy to tackle diabetes-linked cardiovascular problems and a treatment for placental insufficiency in pregnancy.

One of the products involves ¡°antagonising the interaction between two very big proteins¡± in a ¡°chemical problem that is too big for big pharma¡±, he said.

¡°We believe because we are in the university that we can out-think the problem in a way that big pharma could not do,¡± he added.

¡°There has been a failure of big pharma and we need a new approach. You cannot put a thousand people in a glass tower and say ¡®discover something¡¯; discovery occurs in the university,¡± said Professor Martin.

The venture has managed to secure ?15.5 million in private equity funding, as well as €11.5 million (?8.6 million) from the European Commission¡¯s Seventh Framework Programme. It expects to begin clinical tests on one product later this year.

Professor Martin acknowledges that it is an ¡°incredibly fast pace of movement¡±, and said it is down to the project¡¯s management, which is led by chief executive David Campbell and includes specialists with backgrounds in finance, regulation and the life sciences industry. They are based at UCL so they can work ¡°hand in hand¡± with the academics, said Dr Campbell.

The fact that Magnus is ¡°embedded¡± in the university is ¡°key to the model¡±, explained Professor Martin. Scientists from UCL work on each of the five therapeutic areas that the company focuses on, and have an equity share in the company.

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Dr Campbell said keeping the innovations inside the university added value to the science.

¡°We do not want to take the baby away from mum too early because we absolutely believe that you are taking the innovation away from that nurturing environment where it can thrive,¡± he said.

If it followed the traditional route, Magnus would be ¡°deposited¡± in a biotechnology park in Cambridge or Norwich and left to spend an ¡°awful lot of money¡± on capital equipment and expensive management, he added.

¡°What we have been able to do is spend money on the things that are important to us, which is the science,¡± said Dr Campbell.

holly.else@tesglobal.com