Putting our money where our mouth is: investing in UK life sciences

Emma Johnson, Senior Investment Manager – Life Sciences Direct and Co-investment

The UK is a world leader in Life Sciences and we are seeing lots of exciting progress in this strategically important sector.

At the end of January, the BioIndustry Association published its  annual UK biotech financing report showing the UK biotech sector achieved significant greater investment in 2024, raising £3.5 billion—a 94% increase compared to the previous year. The vast majority of this figure was raised by private companies and British Patient Capital feature at the no. 1 and no.2 spots as one of the most active investors in UK Biotech by deal count at Series A and Series B.

Indeed, 2024 was the biggest year yet for the BPC Life Sciences Direct Investments team, fulfilling our objective of providing critical long-term capital to high-potential companies and backing breakthrough innovations. In the span of 12 short months we completed:

• 5 new investments
• 4 follow-on investments
• released 3 tranches of investment when companies successfully hit technical milestones
• negotiated 2 strategic transactions with portfolio companies,
• achieved 1 positive phase III data read out.

We also invested in 3 of the 6 “mega rounds” (over $100m) in the UK, of which there were only 12 across Europe. There were 95 closed globally in our sector, with 60% of all biotech VC capital concentrated into these deals.

On average, our portfolio have raised financings of £56m ($70m) each to fund delivery on their ambitious plans and next phase of growth.

Our growing portfolio

We closed 2024 with a portfolio of 14 stand-out companies spanning the UK’s life sciences sector. Each of these companies are advancing a breakthrough technology for the development of novel solutions to major unmet medical needs such as the design and discovery of new drugs, or products that are driving efficiencies in the life sciences industry and healthcare system.

The companies in our portfolio are by nature highly technical, but the ones we have added to our portfolio this year and what they are doing include:

• Curve Therapeutics: using a new high-throughput screening technology to reinvent drug discovery and develop small molecule cancer drugs
• Myricx Bio: discovering and developing antibody drug conjugates using a novel payload to effectively treat cancer
• Purespring Therapeutics: leading a revolution in the treatment of kidney diseases by developing the world’s first targeted gene therapies
• Phagenesis: making non-surgical therapy for dysphagia patients available to restore swallowing control after stroke or hospital stays requiring ventilators
• Nuclera: commercialising an end-to-end protein prototyping system that brings design and expression to scientists at the lab bench

Across these deals, we have worked with outstanding global syndicates, including investors in the BPC Funds portfolio like SV Health, Abingworth, Advent Life Sciences and Earlybird, plus international co-investors and corporate venture funds from big pharma.

As well as this, we also doubled down and chose to invest again in our portfolio. A select few to highlight

• Grey Wolf Therapeutics developing novel treatments in both cancer and autoimmune diseases with a financing that reached $100m
• Epsilogen, who are pioneering the use of a new type of antibody to harness the immune system against solid tumours and are now treating ovarian cancer patients
• Microbiotica, a Cambridge, UK based biotech company developing live bacterial therapeutics as a novel treatment in oncology and inflammatory bowel disease.

Tracking the progress of our companies

In order to launch a new drug to the market, treatments are taken through three phases of clinical trials. Each stage has a goal and is a critical value inflexion point for the businesses and evaluation of the therapy. Positive data at each phase can increase the value of the business.

Phase 1: evaluates the safety and tolerability of the drug in people, these may be healthy volunteers that are participating in clinical research or patients that have limited other treatment options

Phase 2: evaluates the ability of the drug to improve the disease in a relatively small (tens to hundreds) number of similar patients

Phase 3: evaluates the performance of the drug in a larger number of patients that are representative of the patient population in the real world

Our portfolio now has 5 companies that are testing their drugs in clinical trials and, at the end of 2024, Tenpoint Therapeutics generated our first positive phase 3 data. This means they will be making a filing to the US FDA in the near term and pending positive review, are that much closer to making the drug available to people with presbyopia.

In addition, our 4 HealthTech investments also made great progress in the year with notable achievements from:

• Perspectum who deliver non-invasive advanced imaging solutions to support doctors and pharmaceutical clinical research decisions on organ function
• Proximie who have developed the digital operating system for intelligent operating rooms and are demonstrating the value of this to healthcare productivity, and surgical performance.

Innovation doesn’t rest

All of this puts us in a strong position for 2025, but innovation doesn’t rest. We will inevitably welcome new businesses with breakthrough innovations to our portfolio in the months ahead.

Watch this space…