Arecor Limited became Arecor Therapeutics Plc and floated in June 2021.It is a leader in the development of innovative formulation technology that enables differentiated biopharmaceutical products. It has developed a proprietary, patent backed formulation technology platform that has been proven to stabilize a broad range of molecules as aqueous compositions. Many proteins, peptides and vaccines are too unstable in liquid form and/or at high concentrations to develop stable ready-to-use drugs and Arecor has overcome these challenges to significantly enhance the delivery of therapeutic medicines to patients.

Since inception in 2007, it has built a successful revenue generating business employing this technology to enable and differentiate biopharmaceuticals for a large cross section of the major pharmaceutical companies on a fee for service plus licensing model.

Arecor has taken the strategic decision to develop a portfolio of differentiated peptides through to clinical proof of concept, with an initial focus on diabetes as a therapeutic area. Arecor have announced three key products: an ultra-rapid acting insulin, a highly concentrated insulin and a stable aqueous glucagon.

Arecor has successfully defended two key European patents against active opposition which is an indicator of both the novelty of their work and the importance to potential competitors. Innovate UK backed the development of the super-fast-acting prandial insulin with a £500k grant.

Arecor is based at the Cambridge Science Park in the UK and has a highly talented scientific and management team.

ImmBio was founded in 2003 by Camilo Colaco to develop vaccines that engage dendritic cells. Dr. Colaco identified the role that Heat Shock Proteins play in activating the immune system. The company has programmes developing vaccines against Tuberculosis, Meningitis and Pneumonia. The TB and Meningitis vaccines have been partnered for development in China and India.

The pneumonia product PnuBioVax has now been trialled on humans in a Phase 1 trial which primarily and successfully assessed safety of the approach. The study showed the vaccine creates antibodies against a wide range of strains. The company has signed its first license deal for PnuBioVax with CNBG – China National Biotec Group – part of the state owned Sinopharm group. The license is for the development of a vaccine for infants in the Chinese market.

Pneumonia produces greater infant mortality than TB, HIV and malaria combined. There are approximately 100 serotypes (variants) of Streptococcus pneumoniae in circulation. The emergence of new serotypes presents an ongoing challenge. Existing marketed vaccines are relatively expensive to produce and do not cover all existing or emerging strains. Also, they do not produce good resistance in children, one of the primary patient groups. In contrast, PnuBioVax offers the potential of improved protective breadth and low production costs.

PnuBioVax not only protects against a larger number of strains, it also provides protection against the toxins produced by the bacteria.

InaPlex is a specialist in CRM integration. Customer Relationship Management systems are used by organisations to manage and foster their relationships with customers. Over the last 10 years, they have grown in importance and sophistication; they are now a major line of business application for many organisations. Merging CRM systems when organisations merge is far from trivial. Inaplex is now based in California.

Insense Ltd is a spin-out from Unilever an developed a range of active dressings, which can be applied to the skin to treat a variety of conditions.

In order to sterilise the Insense dressings after manufacture, Professor Davis had to develop a method of stabilising the proteins so that they would withstand ionising radiation. Having done this, it transpired that many pharma companies were interested in using this technology for their own protein-based products. This led to the spin-out of Arecor. All the shareholders in Insense received the same % of shares in Arecor which then raised capital to fund its own expansion. Arecor is making excellent progress.

Insense is now developing a potential treatment for fungal nail and through Microarray it is developing a technology to diagnose the state of a wound, in order to apply the most suitable dressing.

Invro was founded by Dr Grant, who was a reader in Industrial Electronics at Bristol University, has had a long-term interest in creating electronics that minimise power consumption. OT3VCT originally invested in 2004 to support a SMART award, whose purpose was to build a demonstrator of a very low power radio; the target being to reduce power consumption by 90%. This objective was met, and a prototype made. It was hoped that this technology would be licensed to manufacturer of radios. It was (and is) believed that such a radio, which would run on a small battery for many months would be particularly useful in the less developed world, where a radio is often the main source of news and information and where the cost of a battery is a major factor. But Invro was not able to find a manufacturer. Dr Grant retired from the University in 2010 and has since been able to devote more time to Invro, with the emphasis now on the wider opportunities which advancing power electronics technology presents. Invro continues to play its part in the UltraWire consortium which seeks to produce ultra-conductive wire based on a mixture of copper and carbon nanotubes. The company continues to explore opportunities for expanding the use of power electronics in a variety of fields, particularly the mining and metal processing industries. The company exists but has no sales.

OT3 first invested £110,000 in Ixaris Systems Ltd in 2002 when the company consisted of just three founders with an idea for a transaction-based financial solution that would give anyone the ability to pay online. Today, Ixaris specialises in developing innovative global payment applications based on open-loop prepaid card schemes that offer both consumers and businesses convenient access to real-time payments. The company has made good progress and sales are growing rapidly.

Metal Nanopowders is a spin-out from Birmingham University, and was established to commercialise a process invented by Dr Isaac Chang for making very fine metal powders with diameters less than 100 nanometers. The purpose of the investment was to build a machine which is capable  of producing kilogram quantities of these powders.

The company achieved its technical objectives and is able to produce Metal Nanopowders. However, so far, there have been almost no sales and the company is dormant.

Microarray is a spin-out from Insense founded in 2000, and is a specialist wound healing company.

The Company has wide ranging expertise in the fields of wound dressing product development, marketing and sales; electrochemistry and diagnostic sensor technologies. Current research and development activites are concentrated on innovative, electrochemically-active wound dressings for the treatment of chronic wounds and on wound care diagnostics.

Plasma Antennas has developed a range of next-generation smart selectable multi-beam antenna technologies for small cell backhaul, broadband wireless access, mesh network and other communications and sensing applications. Based on a set of patented beamforming technologies, these high-performance electronically-steerable antennas are extremely lightweight and compact.

Scancell is an AIM listed biotechnology company in which Oxford Technology VCT was one of the original investors in 1999 when Professor Lindy Durrant, Scancell’s founder was based in a university lab in Nottingham.

Scancell is developing novel immunotherapies for cancer based on two platform technologies, known as ImmunoBody and Moditope. Scancell’s first ImmunoBody, SCIB1 is being developed for the treatment of melanoma and is in Phase II clinical trials. In theory, these Scancell technologies could be used to treat many common forms of cancer, including breast and prostate. Data from the trials to date is encouraging and demonstrate that SCIB1, when used as monotherapy, has a marked effect on tumour load, produces a melanoma-specific immune response and highly encouraging survival trend without serious side effects.

Scancell has also identified and patented a series of modified epitopes that stimulate the production of killer CD4+ T cells that destroy tumours without toxicity. The Directors believe that the Moditope® platform could play a major role in the development of safe and effective cancer immunotherapies in the future.

Scancell Holdings is listed in the FTSE AIM All-Share Index in the Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology sector. (Code SCLP)

Click here for Scancell shareprice information

Select Technology (STL Management Ltd) distributes high quality document management software via its global channel partners while adding significant further value through its development team by providing integrations or bespoke solutions. Select Technology grew significantly between 2010 and 2018 by focusing on print management software, primarily PaperCut. Realising that this type of software has become increasingly commoditised, the company changed its focus to document capture and sharing, acquiring distribution rights to additional software solutions and introducing them to the market in an innovative way.

Select Technology has also been a leading light in the formation of IDEA – the International Document Evolution Alliance. The founder members of the Alliance are all software specialists and able to provide a very high level of support for the products which they distribute. Each member is located in a separate geographical region and, between them, the members cover over 100 countries. This allows members to compete with major companies in attracting international business which, individually, they would not be able to do.

In addition, if an Alliance member encounters a new product for the document management market with significant potential, the member can bring it to the attention of IDEA. Given the combined purchasing power and expertise of the group, the Alliance can look to negotiate international distribution rights by offering the vendor an easy route to global distribution. The products which Select Technology distributes include Drivve Image, Everyone Print, Foldr, KPAX Management, Papercut and Square 9 content management.

In early 2012, Lucian Falticeanu, who was employed by Metal Nanopowders discovered a method of treating certain powders to produce a material which is super hard. (Hardness > 45 Gpa – believed to be harder than anything except diamond itself). The powder may be pressed into a shape which is then sintered at very high temperature to produce the end product. This may be electrically machined and also polished if necessary. It is believed that this may have several applications. A new company, Superhard Materials Ltd has been established in which Lucian has a 40% shareholding, to take this forward. The rights to this material, now called Superduride, have been licensed to Precision Ceramics Ltd in Birmingham. Lucian has also joined Precision Ceramics as Technical Director. Precision Ceramics will pay all the costs of manufacture and marketing of Superduride, and Superhard Materials will receive a share of the gross margin on sales.