Google and Glaxo’s £540m science boost

Giants to create world-leading medical research centre in UK

A £540m world-leading medical research centre is to be built in Hertfordshire in a partnership between GlaxoSmithKline and Google.

The facility will pioneer treatments in bioelectronics, where small devices are implanted in a patient to monitor and change electrical nerve signals in the body. These typically can be used to target illnesses such as diabetes, arthritis and asthma.

The joint venture, called Galvani Bioelectronics, will be based in Stevenage with a second research hub in San Francisco. It will be owned 55pc by Glaxo and 45pc by Verily, the life sciences division of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and will employ around 30 scientists, engineers and clinicians.

The partnership has been hailed as a major boost to the UK’s science and technology industry, which is renowned as a world leader for innovation.

It is also a boost for the country following the controversy of recent takeover attempts where overseas buyers tried to buy British tech pioneers such as ARM Holdings and Premier Farnell.

Kris Famm, Glaxo’s head of bioelectronics research and president of Galvani, said: ‘We have had really promising results in animal tests, where we’ve shown we can address some chronic diseases with this mechanism. Our goal is to have our first medicines ready for regulatory approval in seven years.’

The implants will consist of an electronic collar that wraps around nerves and could be submitted for regulatory approval by 2023. The first devices will be around the size of a medical pill to be inserted via keyhole surgery, but the aim is to eventually make them as small as a grain of rice.

Electrical impulses have been used to treat serious health conditions in the past, using methods such as pacemakers for heart problems and, more recently, deep brain stimulation to treat Parkinson’s disease and severe depression.

Last year EnteroMedics won US approval for a device to help obese people control their appetite. But Galvani will explore new territory by shrinking the technology down to the size of a pill. These implants will coax insulin from cells to treat diabetes, for example, or correct muscle imbalances in lung diseases. The venture is named after 18th century Italian scientist Luigi Galvani who led the field of bioelectricity when he discovered that he could make the leg of a dead frog twitch using electricity. His findings led to the invention of the voltaic pile, the first electric battery, by Alessandro Volta in 1800.

The company will be chaired by Moncef Slaoui, Glaxo’s head of vaccines. Although Slaoui is retiring from Glaxo next March, he will continue to steer Galvani.

The venture marks Glaxo’s second big investment in the UK since the vote to leave the EU, following an announcement last week that it will spend £275m on drug manufacturing.

Glaxo shares rose 0.7pc, or 12.5p to 1700.5p.