The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
£38m for Dundee Uni drug research
ADundee university spinout company is to receive £38 million to further its work developing new medicines.
Amphista Therapeutics will use the cash to fund research into drugs that work with the body to fight illness and disease.
The drugs – selective bifunctional molecules, known as Amphistas – efficiently remove diseasecausing proteins from human cells.
This could pave the way for new treatments for a broad range of diseases with high efficacy and reduced potential for drug resistance.
The company is a spinout from Professor Alessio Ciulli’s labs at the University’s School of Life Sciences.
The $53m (£38m) Series B financing round is one of the largest investments of this kind to be made in Scotland.
Professor Ciulli said: “My lab’s work at Dundee over the last eight years is recognised as worldleading in the field of TPD, which is providing an entirely new way of tackling diseases.
“As a co-founder of Amphista, I am delighted to have contributed to its growth, and that the commercial potential of our ideas is starting to be validated.
“This very substantive financing round by a consortium of outstanding investors shows the originality and quality of Amphista’s assets and workforce.
“I am very proud of their achievements and look forward to seeing them go from strength to strength.
“Amphista is on track to develop first-in-class and best-in-class medicines for unmet medical needs, and it is very exciting to see innovative science translate towards patient benefit.”
Professor Sir Mike Ferguson, Regius Professor of Life Sciences at Dundee, added: “The level of investment in Amphista is testament to the quality of the science emerging from the university and a sign of how that can be commercialised in a very exciting way.
“The university’s pipeline of new spin-out opportunities is stronger than it has ever been, and we are committed to growing the biomedical industry sector and creating new jobs and opportunities in Dundee and in Scotland.
“This will be hugely helped by the £25m Innovation Hub project that we are developing with funding from the Tay Cities Deal.”
Amphista, based at Biocity in North Lanarkshire, offers the potential to overcome many of the limitations seen with current TPD approaches, providing the opportunity to treat a wider range of diseases.
Amphista is focused on biological targets with a high level of clinical or genetic validation, allowing the team to focus on the translation of their novel TPD approach for clinical benefit in areas of high unmet need.
Amphista CEO Nicola Thompson added: “This financing round, led by an outstanding investor syndicate, is a strong endorsement of our world class team and our novel approach. Amphista will now accelerate its oncology pipeline towards the clinic and extend our portfolio into indications largely inaccessible by traditional TPD approaches, such as diseases of the central nervous system.
“This oversubscribed Series B supports our ambition as a worldleading next generation protein degradation company delivering ground-breaking new medicines to patients in areas of high unmet need.”