OBN's 2013 Annual Awards Dinner Celebrates UK Bioscience Success Stories

OXFORD, England, October 1, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

 http://www.obn.org.uk/obn_/menu.php?p=rss&rn=rssfeed&prechk_news=1

OBN's Annual Awards Dinner this evening celebrated the achievements and major success stories in biotech, medtech and diagnostics over the past year at a black tie event at The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The Awards seek to highlight the many achievements of the UK's bioscience sector in raising funds, executing deals and supporting innovation. OBN's Awards recognize these achievements, taking into account its significance for the stage of development of a nominated life sciences company, as well as the scale of the achievement.

The 2013 award winners were:

Circassia, Best New Biotech Development Programme

Award Presented by J A Kemp

Circassia's ToleroMune® cat allergy treatment maintained symptom improvement two years after the start of Short-Course Therapy in a phase II clinical trial, while their HDM-SPIRE treatment for house dust mite allergy also achieved long-term symptom reduction.

OrganOx, Best New Medtech Development Programme

Award Presented by Citigate

OrganOx has developed metra™ - a system which enables the repair, preservation and objective viability assessment of livers prior to transplantation. It has already been used successfully for several transplantation procedures in 2013.

Autifony Therapeutics, Best Emerging Biotech

Award Presented by James Cowper

Autifony is developing new drugs to treat hearing disorders by targeting specific ion channels which regulate neuronal activity within the auditory system. A top up series A round of £5.5m in June 2013 brings funds raised to £15.5m, plus a £2.75m collaboration also announced in 2013.

Parsortix, Best Emerging Medtech

Award Presented by Team Consulting

Angle plc spin-out Parsortix has separation technology which captures very rare circulating tumour cells (CTCs) in cancer patient blood. They have launched a research market product but also aim to secure CE Mark approval for the clinical market in 2013, with FDA approval sought during 2014.

Karus Therapeutics, Best Biotech Fundraiser

Award Presented by Akesios Associates

Karus raised £5m as the first tranche of a Series B investment in September 2012 from top tier investors SV Life Sciences (UK and International), New Leaf Venture Partners (US), Novo A/S (Denmark), IP Group (UK), Esperante Ventures (Netherlands) and a number of Angel investors. This award recognizes the progression the company has made in securing this fundraising from this syndicate.

Glide Pharma, Best Medtech Fundraiser

Award Presented by Milton Park

Glide Pharma raised £14m in Feb 2013 from Invesco Perpetual and existing investors.  This will enable the scale-up of manufacturing for its Glide SDI injector system (both drug and device).  Glide won an additional £2.3m of project funding from TSB in the form of a Biomedical Catalyst competition award.

Immunocore,  Best Biotech Dealmaker

Award Presented by E&Y

Immunocore secured a £142m deal with GSK (July 2013) for ImmTACs to treat cancer and viral disease and a research collaboration and licensing agreement with Genentech (June 2013), valued at up to £300m. The deals come with potential fees and milestone payments which could be worth hundreds of millions according to industry commentators.

Oxford Gene Technology,  Best Medtech Dealmaker

Award Presented by Wilmerhale

Oxford Gene Technology collaboratively developed  a panel of 58 cancer-associated genes for diagnostic purposes with Birmingham and Salisbury NHS Regional Genetics Laboratories backed by £1.16m in funding from the TSB (May 2013).

Technology Strategy Board,  Highest Impact Investor

Award Presented by OBN

This award is made to the TSB in recognition of the impact of the Biomedical Catalyst, making investments of up to £122m over its first 18 months, including up to 112 awards to small-to-medium sized companies in the sector.

Shire,  Best Pharma BD&L Team

Award Presented by World Courier

Shire strengthened its rare disease and opthalmology portfolio with a number of significant acquisitions including Premacure AB, Lotus Tissue Repair, and SARCode Bioscience, and entered into a number of new co-development deals.

Dr Jon Rees, OBN's CEO, said: "This year's awards highlight the vibrancy and variety of the broader life sciences sector in the UK and, despite tough financing conditions, the progress companies have been able to make and the tangible successes delivered. As OBN expands its sphere of influence across the UK, we were delighted to welcome a larger number of entrepreneurs from across the UK to the Awards Dinner than any previous year."

**Photographs of the Awards are available on request**

About OBN

OBN is the membership organisation supporting and bringing together the UK's emerging life science companies, corporate partners and investors within the Golden Triangle biocluster (formed by the cities of Oxford, Cambridge and London) and beyond, providing networking, partnering, group purchasing, advocacy and cluster consultancy.

Through our delivery of Europe's third largest annual biopartnering and investment conference 'BioTrinity', which is expected to attract 1000+ delegates from 30 countries, OBN will generate more R&D-company-to-investor interactions than anyone else in Europe.

For further information on OBN and its activities, please visit: http://www.obn.org.uk or to find out more about BioTrinity, please visit http://www.biotrinity.com

Contacts

OBN
David Boal, Director of Business Development
Tel: +44(0)845-5049-743
david.boal@obn.org.uk


Citigate Dewe Rogerson
Janine Hagan
Tel: +44(0)20-7638-9571
Janine.Hagan@citigatedr.co.uk