21 UK biotech companies you should know about

The UK is home to several biotech hubs, including the famous ‘golden triangle’, made up of Oxford, Cambridge, and London. In fact, after a $700 million surge in funding in the third quarter of 2023 started an upward trajectory, the UK biotech scene is now one of the most vibrant in Europe, laying the foundation for numerous companies to develop innovative technologies, some of which have spun out of the nation’s most prestigious universities. In this article, we take a look at 21 UK biotech companies you should know about. 

Amphista Therapeutics 

• Disease areas: Oncology and neurology
• Technology: Targeted protein degradation
• Recent news: Unveiled new data demonstrating the potential of its protein degraders in animal models

Amphista Therapeutics is focused on transforming the lives of patients with severe diseases, with a particular focus on cancer. The company is applying its proprietary Amphista degrader platform to advance new approaches in targeted protein degradation (TPD). Its next-generation bifunctional molecules use a novel approach that makes use of a wider range of the body’s own innate protein degrading mechanisms than those used by most other TPD companies. This proprietary approach offers the potential to overcome many of the limitations seen with current TPD approaches – such as those associated with the use of a narrow range of protein degrading mechanisms – providing the opportunity to treat a wider range of diseases. 

In May 2023, the UK biotech company announced that it had achieved its first discovery milestone under its collaboration and license agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb. This agreement was formed in 2022, and included a $30 million upfront payment, the potential for up to $1.25 billion in performance-based milestone payments, and payment for a limited expansion of the collaboration, as well as royalties on global net sales of products.

Furthermore, in January 2024, Amphista unveiled new data demonstrating the potential of its protein degraders in animal models, which marks a step toward bringing its technology to the clinic. The findings showed the company’s therapies reduced tumor size and boosted survival, and also successfully knocked down target proteins in the brains of dogs and monkeys. 

Apollo Therapeutics

• Lead disease area: Inflammatory diseases
• Lead technology: Anti-IL-18 monoclonal antibody
• Recent news: Signed a license agreement for Sunshine Lake Pharma’s dual receptor agonist

Apollo Therapeutics’ approach to drug development is to take breakthroughs in basic medical research – for example, from universities – and progress that research into pre-clinical and clinical-stage assets, with the goal of eventually turning them into new treatment options. And, to help translate some of the world-leading basic biomedical research conducted in the UK into innovative new therapies, the biotech company has core innovation sourcing and drug discovery collaborations with six UK universities: University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University College London, Imperial College London, King’s College London and the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR). 

The company currently has five programs in clinical development and more than 15 programs in discovery and preclinical development. Its lead asset, called camoteskimab, was licensed from Avalo Therapeutics in 2022. It is a fully human monoclonal antibody targeting the proinflammatory cytokine IL-18 and is being developed to treat inflammatory indications like atopic dermatitis, for which it is currently in a phase 2 study. 

Furthermore, in November 2024, Apollo signed another license agreement for the development of Sunshine Lake Pharma’s dual receptor agonist, APL-18881. The clinical candidate has an open U.S. Investigational New Drug Application (IND) and Apollo is developing the molecule in a range of potential indications in the cardiometabolic, liver, and related disease areas that are not currently disclosed.

In January 2024, the UK-based biotech company also announced the second close of a series C financing round, in which it managed to raise an additional $33.5 million, bringing its series C total to $260 million. Since its inception, Apollo has raised more than $450 million.

AstronauTx

• Disease area: Neurodegenerative diseases
• Technology: Small molecules
• Recent news: Raised $61 million in series A round

Focused on treating neurodegenerative diseases by correcting disrupted brain physiology, London-based AstronauTx was spun out from a family of specialized venture capital (VC) funds called the Dementia Discovery Fund in 2019, securing seed funding from University College London’s Technology Fund and the UK Future Fund.

According to AstronauTx, the disruption of normal clearance mechanisms, metabolism, and synaptic networks in the brain causes a vicious cycle of worsening symptoms and increasing pathology. Therefore, the company is instead targeting mechanisms that will have multifactorial benefits by improving the clearance of toxic materials, such as the accumulation of α-synuclein, from the brain, improving memory consolidation, boosting metabolism for efficient network function, and secreting trophic support – which refers to a variety of chemical signals that neurons need to continue living – for long-term neuronal health. The company currently has a portfolio of small molecule therapies to restore dysregulated physiology. 

In October 2023, the UK biotech company closed a $61 million series A financing round, which was led by the Novartis Venture Fund. Fellow giant Bristol Myers Squibb also participated in the round. At the time, AstronauTx said that the proceeds would be used to advance the company’s preclinical portfolio of small molecule drugs.

Autolus 

• Disease area: Oncology 
• Technology: CAR-T cell therapy
• Recent news: Lead asset, obe-cel, received FDA approval to treat B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Autolus is developing programmed CAR-T cell therapies for the treatment of cancer. Using a broad range of proprietary and modular T cell programming technologies, the company is engineering precisely targeted, controlled, and highly active T cell therapies that are designed to better recognize cancer cells, break down their defense mechanisms, and eliminate these cells. 

Autolus currently has a pipeline of product candidates in development for the treatment of hematological malignancies and solid tumors. In fact, its lead asset, obe-cel, recently received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (r/r B-ALL). 

Autolus has signed license agreements with some big names in the industry. For example, in 2021, the company signed an option and license agreement with Moderna so that Moderna could gain access to its proprietary targeting technology. The agreement granted exclusive access to develop and commercialize mRNA therapeutics for up to four immuno-oncology targets. Meanwhile, in October 2022, Autolus also signed an agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb, giving the big pharma access to its RQR8 safety switch for selected cell therapy programs for the treatment of cancer.

Furthermore, in 2022, Autolus received $70 million in milestone payments from Blackstone Life Sciences. Out of this, $35 million was paid as a result of the joint steering committee’s review of Autolus’ interim analysis of its pivotal phase 2 trial of obe-cel in relapsed/refractory adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia, whereby the study met its primary endpoint, while the additional $35 million was paid as part of a pre-agreed manufacturing milestone due to the completion of planned activities demonstrating the performance and qualification of obe-cel’s manufacturing process.

Bicycle Therapeutics

• Disease area: Oncology
• Technology: Bicycle molecules 
• Recent news: Raised $555 million in a private placement 

Bicycle Therapeutics is developing a new class of drugs called bicycle molecules, which are essentially fully synthetic short peptides constrained with small molecule scaffolds to form two loops that stabilize their structural geometry. This unique structural design means that they can deliver high precision to their chosen targets, while their size and surface area mean they can potentially engage targets that have historically been resistant to conventional modalities. 

The company’s lead candidate is called zelenectide pevedotin. It is a bicycle toxin conjugate (BTC) targeting Nectin-4, a well-validated tumor antigen. The asset is currently being evaluated in a phase 2/3 trial in combination with pembrolizumab versus chemotherapy in first-line metastatic urothelial cancer, and as a monotherapy and in combination with pembrolizumab in late-line metastatic urothelial cancer.

In March 2023, Bicycle announced a strategic collaboration with Novartis to develop, manufacture, and commercialize Bicycle radio-conjugates for multiple agreed-upon oncology targets. Two months later, the UK biotech company announced a similar collaboration with Bayer, as they also entered into an agreement to discover, develop, manufacture, and commercialize Bicycle radioconjugates for multiple agreed-upon oncology targets.

Furthermore, Bicycle announced a $555 million private placement financing in May 2024, which the company said it would use to fund the continued development of its pipeline and for other research and development (R&D), as well as for general corporate purposes.

CellCentric

• Disease area: Oncology
• Technology: p300/CBP inhibitor
• Recent news: Expanded U.S. presence with new office in Boston, Massachusetts

From a scientific foundation in epigenetic research, CellCentric is fully focused on the clinical potential of inhibiting p300/CBP with a novel oral drug called inobrodib.

The drug displaces p300/CBP and, as a result, impacts the expression of key cancer-driving genes, including MYC and IRF4, which are important in the progression of hematological malignancies. The inhibition of p300/CBP also impacts the androgen receptor expression, which is critical in late-stage prostate cancer, and the immune checkpoint protein PDL1. Different cancer indications can be targeted by inobrodib, either as a monotherapy or in combination with existing standard-of-care drugs.

In June 2023, CellCentric received an FDA fast track designation for inobrodib for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma. The drug is currently in phase 1/2 trials for this indication, as well in advanced solid tumors. A month after the fast track designation announcement, the UK biotech company also said that it had raised $25 million from a strategic investment from Pfizer to help finance further development of inobrodib. 

Meanwhile, earlier this month, the company announced that it had expanded its U.S. presence with a new office in Boston, Massachusetts, which will help to increase its drug development capacity. A spokesperson told Fierce Biotech that the U.S. hub will also lead inobrodib’s accelerated approval and phase 3 studies. 

Clock.bio

• Disease area: Age-related diseases
• Technology: Regenerative medicines
• Recent news: Raised $5.3 million in seed funding 

Anti-aging companies are becoming a big deal within the biotech industry of late. Launched out of stealth in 2023 after reaching proof-of-concept with $4 million in funding, clock.bio is one such startup, based in Cambridge, that is developing novel regenerative medicines leveraging the natural ability of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to prevent and treat age-related diseases. 

In fact, the company has already developed an aging model that can force stem cells to age, faithfully recreating the known cellular hallmarks of aging. This intervention triggers a self-rejuvenation mechanism, whereby iPSCs repair these hallmarks and turn young and healthy.

When it launched, the UK biotech company also said that it had an immediate objective to decode all rejuvenation programs present in human cells in order to build an atlas of disease and rejuvenation targets for clinical translation. The company has now succeeded in building what it described as its “Atlas of Rejuvenation.” 

Running a genome-wide CRISPR screen, the company has been able to decode the “rejuvenation mechanism” innate in human stem cells, identifying more than 100 genes. Being able to understand the genes associated with rejuvenation will enable the reversal of several aging hallmarks by repurposing existing drugs for increased healthspan. Furthermore, genetic targets for repair of individual aging hallmarks will be highly relevant for developing novel treatments of age-related diseases.

Clock.bio’s most recent funding round was in October 2024, when it announced that it had raised $5.3 million in seed funding. 

Crescendo Biologics 

• Disease area: Immuno-oncology
• Technology: T cell enhancing therapies 
• Recent news: Dosed patients in expanded phase 1b trial of lead candidate CB307

Crescendo Biologics is an immuno-oncology company developing targeted T cell enhancing “Humabody” therapies. To aid the development of these therapies, the company has a transgenic mouse platform that can generate fully human VH domain building blocks (Humabody VH). These molecules can be configured to engage therapeutic targets in such a way that they deliver novel pharmacology and superior biodistribution. This can lead to larger therapeutic windows compared to more conventional immunoglobulin G (IgG) approaches. 

CB307 is Crescendo’s lead bispecific clinical candidate. It targets CD137 and PSMA, and works by conditionally activating only tumour-specific T cells exclusively within the tumor microenvironment using the CD137 co-stimulatory mechanism. Its unique format enables potent, tumor-specific killing, while avoiding systemic toxicity and can be applied to a broad range of PSMA+ cancer indications to address a large unmet medical need.

In December 2023, Crescendo announced that the first U.S. patient had been dosed in an expanded phase 1b trial of CB307 for patients with PSMA+ metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

The company also announced in 2023 that it had secured $32 million in capital to help accelerate the clinical development of CB307.

Furthermore, when it comes to collaborations, the UK biotech company has a big deal going with German giant BioNTech. In 2022, the two companies entered into a multi-target discovery collaboration to develop novel immunotherapies for the treatment of patients with cancer and other diseases. 

EnteroBiotix

• Disease area: Inflammatory diseases
• Technology: Microbial therapies
• Recent news: Announced positive topline results for lead candidate EBX-102-02

A biotech company based in Scotland, EnteroBiotix’s mission is to transform the lives of patients through best-in-class microbiome medicines. Ultimately, the company aims to reduce the costs and improve the efficiency of fecal transplants, in which a healthy donor’s gut bacteria are transferred to the intestinal tract of a patient suffering from a microbiome-mediated disease.

In order to make the fecal transplants, EnteroBiotix has differentiated platform manufacturing technologies, including its novel proprietary AMPLA platform, that confer superior product characteristics. For example, unlike traditional intestinal microbiome transplant products, which come in liquid suspensions, are brown in color, and have an odor, EnteroBiotix’s medicines are dried, odorless, colorless, and formed as a powder. 

The biotech company’s lead product, EBX-102-02, is being evaluated in clinical trials for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C). In March, the company announced positive topline results from its phase 2a trial of the candidate, which demonstrated clinically meaningful superiority over placebo in key efficacy assessments in patients with moderate to severe IBS-C. The company expects to announce final data in Q3 2025, and is continuing to engage with regulatory authorities to agree on the next steps in its clinical development programme for EBX-102-02 in IBS. Based on these promising results, the company plans to proceed with a larger phase 2b trial to confirm efficacy.

EnteroBiotix is also testing its candidate EBX-102 in a phase 1b trial for the treatment of liver cirrhosis. In November 2024, the company announced positive results from the trial, in which the candidate demonstrated proof-of-principle across multiple microbiome assessments, inflammatory biomarkers, and clinical assessments, in turn supporting its continued development as the first microbial therapy for individuals with liver disease.

In April 2024, EnteroBiotix completed a £27 million ($34 million) funding round.

Evox Therapeutics

• Disease area: Neurology 
• Technology: Exosome therapies
• Recent news: Raised £69.2 million ($95.4 million) in series C funding round

Evox Therapeutics is focused on harnessing and engineering the natural delivery capabilities of extracellular vesicles, known as exosomes, to develop an entirely new class of therapeutics. More specifically, the exosomes are loaded with adeno-associated virus (AAV) particles encoding the therapeutic gene of interest (ExoAAV), in effect cloaking them within the exosome and protecting them from the immune system. The intention here is to overcome one of the major challenges for AAV and other viral gene therapies, in which the immune response to the viral vector limits patient access and often precludes multiple dosing.

The company’s proprietary DeliverEX platform enables it to load exosomes with diverse drug cargos, leverage the unique tissue targeting properties of exosomes, as well as support proprietary manufacturing and purification methods for advanced exosome therapeutics. Exosome-based drugs have the potential to address some of the limitations of protein, antibody, and nucleic acid-based therapies by enabling delivery to cells and tissues that are currently out of reach using other drug delivery technologies. 

Still in the discovery phase, the company is developing a pipeline of drugs leveraging the ability of exosomes to deliver drugs to cells and tissues that are currently inaccessible by conventional means. Its two lead assets are currently for undisclosed central nervous system (CNS) indications.

Back in 2020, Evox Therapeutics signed a major deal with Eli Lilly, worth up to $1.1 billion. The research collaboration and license agreement involved leveraging Evox’s DeliverEX platform to develop and deliver RNA interference (RNAi) and antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) drug payloads for the potential treatment of neurological disorders.

Meanwhile, in 2021, Evox completed a £69.2 million ($95.4 million) series C financing round.

Ignota Labs

• Focus area: Rescuing failed drugs with AI
• Lead technology: PDE9A inhibitor
• Recent news: Raised $6.9 million in seed funding 

Despite the time and money invested by biotech and pharma companies in the drug development process, statistics show that 90% of drugs fail in clinical trials because they do not meet their primary endpoints or because they were shown to be unsafe. But Ignota Labs sees an opportunity here – its mission is to use artificial intelligence (AI) to rescue these failed drugs, with a particular focus on the ones that have been discounted by their original developers due to safety issues. Essentially, the company selects failing drugs to work with, solves their toxicity issues, and reenters them into clinical trials so that they can be approved and delivered to patients who need them.

Ignota’s AI technology, called SAFEPATH, uses deep learning that explains why and how safety issues occur through a balance of cheminformatics and bioinformatics, delivering actionable insights to refine or repurpose drug candidates. Ignota believes that the intersection of cheminformatics and bioinformatics will unlock true insights into the drugs that have hit issues.

The UK biotech company recently raised $6.9 million in seed funding, which it said will be used to expand its pipeline and help advance its first asset, a PDE9A inhibitor, into early-stage clinical trials. The company is also in late-stage due diligence for a handful of drugs that it believes could be transformative if their toxicity problems can be overcome.

Isomorphic Labs 

• Technology: AI drug design engines
• Significant collaborations: Eli Lilly and Novartis
• Recent news: Raised $600 million in funding round

Isomorphic Labs – the sister company of Google Deepmind – is developing cutting-edge computational techniques in fields like deep learning, reinforcement learning, active learning, and representation learning to solve some of the most difficult challenges in drug discovery, as well as some of the most stubborn scientific problems in biology, chemistry, and medical research today.

The UK biotech company helped Google DeepMind develop the acclaimed AI model AlphaFold3, which can accurately predict the 3D structure of proteins. The technology has been heralded as a game-changer for drug discovery because it has the potential to allow researchers to identify promising drug candidates far more quickly, efficiently, and precisely than current methods. Isomorphic Labs is using AlphaFold3 internally to speed up its own drug discovery efforts.

Isomorphic Labs has recently formed high-profile partnerships with a couple of big pharma companies. Last year, it announced two strategic collaborations with Eli Lilly and Novartis that have the potential to be worth nearly $3 billion. Furthermore, in February this year, the company also expanded the scope of its small molecule drug discovery agreement with Novartis, adding up to three additional research programs. 

Meanwhile, just last month, the company raised an incredible $600 million in its first external funding round to further develop its AI drug design engine and advance therapeutic programs into the clinic. 

Jellagen

• Technology: Collagen Type 0 biomaterials
• Significant collaboration: Mayo Clinic
• Recent news: Raised £8.7 million ($10.5 million) in series A funding round

Based in Wales, Jellagen is advancing collagen biomaterials derived from jellyfish. Most collagen is currently derived from mammalian sources, including pigs, cows, and rats, which carry the risk of disease and virus transfer when used in humans. Therefore, as Jellagen sources its Collagen Type 0 from jellyfish (Rhizostoma pulmo), these risks are avoided.

According to the UK biotech company, preclinical in vivo results have proven Collagen Type 0 to be superior to its mammalian counterparts in medical applications, and it also has the potential to deliver healing benefits in human applications. The company has established development collaborations with research organizations, including the Mayo Clinic in the U.S. and others in Europe, to investigate and corroborate these findings.

In December 2022, Jellagen closed a £8.7 million ($10.5 million) series A funding round to help it advance its leading program of product development towards human trials and regulatory filing.

Latent Labs 

• Technology: Therapeutic protein design
• Approach: Partnership-driven business model
• Recent news: Raised $40 million in series A funding round 

In February this year, Latent Labs launched with $40 million in series A financing. The new company was founded by Simon Kohl, an important figure in the development of the award-winning AI model AlphaFold. But Latent Labs is taking a different path: AlphaFold was not intended to create novel proteins from scratch, so the company wants to build upon its foundation by actually creating entirely new therapeutic proteins that do not exist in nature. 

This approach allows for the development of proteins that can be tailored to specific functions, and it could also expand drug targets, as many diseases remain untreatable because natural proteins do not provide the right molecular tools to treat them. 

Latent Labs operates on a partnership-driven model instead of focusing on developing its own proprietary drug candidates. It says that by not restricting its technology to in-house projects or exclusive licensing deals, it makes its AI tools more accessible to a broader range of partners, enabling smaller biotech companies and academic institutions to make use of its technology without the need for substantial upfront investments or exclusive agreements.

Maxion Therapeutics 

• Disease areas: Inflammatory diseases, pain, and cardiovascular disease
• Technology: Engineered antibodies 
• Recent news: Raised $72 million in series A funding round

Maxion Therapeutics is developing antibody-based drugs, which it calls “KnotBodies”, for previously untreatable ion channel- and G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR)-driven diseases. These drugs, generated using the company’s KnotBody technology platform, are potent, selective, and long-acting therapeutics, created by combining naturally occurring mini-proteins – called “knottins” – with antibodies using phage and mammalian display technologies. 

Ion channel and GPCR dysfunction are implicated in a wide range of debilitating diseases. However, current treatments, primarily based on small molecule drugs, often suffer from poor efficacy and side effects due to the lack of selectivity and exposure. Comparatively, Maxion believes that engineered antibodies offer superior selectivity to small molecule drugs and are already well-proven therapeutically, which is why the company has chosen to work with this class of drugs. 

Maxion’s lead program, MAX001, is currently in preclinical development to target a broad range of inflammatory diseases, such as atopic dermatitis and inflammatory bowel disease. Meanwhile, the company’s other early-stage programs include KnotBody molecules for the treatment of pain and cardiovascular disease.

In March, Maxion raised $72 million in a series A funding round. The proceeds from this will help the company advance its drug pipeline and technology platform. 

Sitryx

• Disease areas: Autoimmune and inflammatory diseases
• Technology: Disease-modifying therapeutics
• Recent news: Initiated phase 1 trial for lead candidate SYX-5219 for treatment of atopic dermatitis

Sitryx is focused on regulating cell metabolism to develop disease-modifying therapeutics for chronic autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. The company says that most modern anti-inflammatory and oncology drugs intervene at a particular point, causing immunosuppression with limited results, but that changing the state of different combinations of immune cells can have a much more wide-ranging impact to potentially resolve inflammation.

The company is currently building a broad and differentiated pipeline by identifying novel targeted approaches based on how changes in metabolism modulate immune cell function. Its pipeline consists of projects at multiple stages of drug discovery, with its lead candidate being SYX-5219. The company announced last month that it had initiated a phase 1 trial of the candidate for the treatment of atopic dermatitis. 

In September 2023, Sitryx managed to raise an additional $39 million in funding, following on from its $30 million series A financing round announced in October 2018. The company said at the time that the proceeds would go toward progressing its therapies into clinical development.

Synairgen

• Disease area: Respiratory diseases
• Technology: Inhaled interferon beta
• Recent news: Raised £18 million ($24 million) in funding

Respiratory disease company Synairgen is focused on developing SNG001, an investigational formulation for inhalation containing the broad-spectrum antiviral protein interferon beta designed to be delivered directly into the lungs for severe viral lung infections. Interferon beta is a naturally occurring protein that orchestrates the body’s antiviral responses. However, viruses have evolved mechanisms that suppress natural interferon beta production, thereby helping them evade the immune system.

SNG001 has been tested in several clinical studies in both outpatient and hospital settings and was found to boost lung antiviral responses, accelerate viral clearance from the lungs, be well-tolerated, and show potential for clinical benefit in patients with various respiratory infections.

In January 2025, Synairgen announced that it had raised £18 million ($24 million) by way of a subscription from TFG Asset Management. The company expressed that the proceeds from this would be used to fund external and internal trial costs for the interim analysis, and drug manufacturing and stability testing for a phase 2 trial investigating SNG001 in mechanically ventilated patients with confirmed respiratory viral infections. At the time of the press release, Synairgen said that plans were underway to start the trial in the coming months.

TRIMTECH Therapeutics 

• Disease area: Neurodegenerative disorders
• Technology: Targeted protein degradation 
• Recent news: Raised $31 million in seed funding round

Harnessing the potential of targeted protein degradation, TRIMTECH Therapeutics is developing a pipeline of potent small molecule CNS-penetrant therapies based on its aggregate-selective degrader molecules called “TRIMTACs.” The company’s pipeline is focused on treatments for severe neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s disease.

Working across the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) and the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) at Cambridge, the co-founders of TRIMTECH and their teams demonstrated in 2023 that TRIM21 could be re-purposed to destroy tau protein aggregates associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The team went on to develop two new potential therapies that selectively remove aggregated tau proteins and improve symptoms of neurodegeneration in mice.

TRIMTECH is now building further upon this research, leveraging the innate properties of the E3 ubiquitin ligase TRIM21 to selectively and potently degrade protein aggregates associated with a range of diseases that are not well served by current targeted protein degradation approaches. To do this, the company will harness TRIM21’s unique properties in the form of its TRIMTAC degraders that will direct TRIM21 towards disease-causing protein aggregates.

In March 2025, the UK biotech company raised $31 million in seed funding to advance its pipeline. 

T-Therapeutics

• Disease areas: Oncology and autoimmune diseases
• Technology: T cell receptor (TCR) therapies
• Recent news: Raised £48 million ($59 million) in series A funding round

T-Therapeutics is a next-generation T cell receptor (TCR) company spun off from the University of Cambridge, and was created to harness the power of T cell biology to create safe and effective treatments for many cancers and autoimmune diseases. The company is currently working on engineering highly specific soluble TCRs that bind very strongly to cancer-specific targets, assist the immune system in pinpointing tumor tissues, and then destroy them.

The company uses its proprietary OpTiMus platform to develop ‘optimal’ TCRs. This platform is essentially a highly engineered transgenic mouse carrying genes for the human immune system. T-Therapeutics immunizes the mouse with human peptides, and the mouse makes humanized TCRs that don’t exist in the human repertoire. The company says that this provides it with an almost unlimited supply of TCRs that have unique properties in terms of activity, affinity, half-life, and diversity. It also applies machine learning to enable the selection of the most active molecules, using these as building blocks to make its drug candidates.

In November 2023, T-Therapeutics raised £48 million ($59 million) in series A financing. The company said at the time that the proceeds would be used to discover and develop novel TCR therapies for cancer indications and inflammatory disorders. 

Quell Therapeutics

• Disease area: Immunology
• Technology: Engineered Treg cell therapies
• Recent news: Announced that its partner AstraZeneca has selected a candidate to progress in its type 1 diabetes Treg cell therapy program

London-based Quell Therapeutics is a leader in developing engineered Treg cell therapies that aim to harness, direct, and optimize their immune suppressive properties to address serious medical conditions driven by the immune system. The company is leveraging its Foxp3 Phenotype Lock technology, unique multi-modular platform, and integrated manufacturing capabilities to design and develop a pipeline of highly engineered Treg cell therapies with greater potential for persistence, potency, and stability than earlier generations of Treg cell therapy approaches.

Quell’s lead candidate is called QEL-001. It is being developed to induce operational tolerance following liver transplantation, with the potential to protect the post-transplant liver without the need for chronic immunosuppressive medications. It is currently in a phase 1/2 trial for liver transplantation.

In June 2023, the UK biotech company announced that it had entered into a collaboration, exclusive option, and license agreement with AstraZeneca to develop, manufacture, and commercialize autologous, engineered Treg cell therapies for two autoimmune disease indications. Under the terms of the agreement, Quell received $85 million upfront from AstraZeneca, and is also eligible to receive over $2 billion for further development and commercialization milestones, if successful, plus tiered royalties.

Quell recently announced that AstraZeneca has selected a candidate to progress in its type 1 diabetes Treg cell therapy program, resulting in a milestone payment of $10 million.

Verdiva Bio 

• Disease area: Obesity
• Technologies: GLP-1 receptor agonists and amylin agonists
• Recent news: Launched with $411 million in series A funding 

Joining the obesity race, Verdiva Bio launched in January 2025 with a very impressive $411 million in series A funding to advance a broad portfolio of oral and injectable treatments with best-in-class potential to treat obesity, cardiometabolic disorders, and related complications. 

According to the company’s chief executive officer (CEO), Verdiva’s aim is to overcome “significant unmet medical needs” in obesity care, such as the development of oral therapies with less frequent dosing regimens, the potential for improved efficacy and tolerability, and innovative combination therapies in pursuit of healthier weight loss. 

Verdiva acquired global development and commercialization rights outside of greater China and South Korea to their portfolio from Sciwind Biosciences. The UK biotech company now plans to advance the development of these therapies through a mix of monotherapy and combination programs. Its current lead asset is a phase 2-ready oral GLP-1 receptor agonist that can both elicit and maintain weight loss, and is designed to be dosed once a week. 

Meanwhile, the company also possesses a potential once-weekly oral amylin agonist for use as monotherapy or in combination with an oral GLP-1 agonist, and a long-acting, subcutaneous amylin agonist for use as monotherapy or in combination with a proprietary GLP-1 peptide. 

A flourishing life sciences industry: ‘Life Sci for Growth’ package brings $650 million investment to UK 

The UK biotech industry has been flourishing in recent times. Last year, it defied all the odds by raising around £3.5 billion ($4.36 million) in 2024 – an incredible 94% increase from 2023 – despite a difficult global economic climate. 

This came after the UK government announced a package called ‘Life Sci for Growth’ in 2023, in which it said £650 million ($804 million) would be invested to boost the nation’s life sciences sector. The package also included plans to relaunch the Academic Health Science Network as Health Innovation Networks to boost innovation by bringing together the National Health Service (NHS), local communities, charities, academia, and industry to share best practices. Additionally, a week before this announcement was made, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) also launched a 10-year science strategy for the nation.

In terms of technological advancements, it is also worth noting that the country has strongly embraced AI in the last few years, and was recently ranked third in a Stanford report when it came to the countries with the most “vibrancy” in AI – a metric that considered private investment, patents, and research – coming only behind the U.S. and China. 

All of this suggests that the UK has been working extremely hard to position itself as a global leader in biotech – and it is fair to say that it certainly seems to be achieving its goal.

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