Download Oxford spin-out Orbit Discovery launches peptide

Oxford spin-out Orbit Discovery launches peptide-discovery platform
25 January 2015
Orbit Discovery – spun out by the University of Oxford today – has raised seed funding to
commercialise technology which will help to identify targeted, affordable therapeutic drugs known
as peptides.
Oxford Sciences Innovation, the £320m investment company established to provide capital and
scaling expertise to Oxford spin-outs, is the lead investor in the new company. Other investors
include the Oxford Technology and Innovations EIS Fund led by George Robinson and and the
OT(S)EIS fund managed by Oxford Technology management, which has been making science
investments around Oxford for 30 years.
Orbit Discovery will establish a screening platform to identify robust peptide drug candidates for
both internal industry drug discovery programs and via collaborative research. The technology was
developed at Oxford’s Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine by Professors Graham Ogg and
Terence Rabbitts.
Orbit CEO Alex Batchelor said, “Peptides offer several advantages as drugs. They are small enough to
be delivered in tablet form, are highly specific and have safe degradation products. Recent synthetic
improvements to peptides have opened up the potential for discovery of drugs for more diseases,
but the technologies available for screening have not supported these improvements. Our
technology directly addresses this need so we will be screening for active peptides in a range of
chronic disease areas.”
Peptides drugs have the potential to provide the highly targeted treatments of more expensive
biologic drugs but at a lower price. This makes it possible to treat large patient populations
affordably, and to treat diseases that traditional biologics can’t address. The Orbit technology
provides screening tools that support the discovery of peptides for a wide range of disease types.
The University’s commercialisation company Isis Innovation assisted the founders by filing patents,
building the business plan and marketing the opportunity.
Isis Innovation managing director Linda Naylor said: “Oxford spinout Orbit Discovery will identify
molecules for drug development programmes to treat a wide range of patients and conditions.”
Media enquiries to:
Isis Innovation Ltd
[email protected]
T: +44(0)1865280867
About peptide drugs
The drug market is dominated by small molecules (the traditional, tabletted drugs that we are
prescribed for a wide range of illnesses and in general can be used to treat large patient populations)
and biologics (mainly monoclonal antibodies that are highly specific but come by injection and often
with a high price tag, and that are generally only used for smaller patient groups with, for example,
autoimmune disease or cancer). A subset of biologics are peptides such as insulin (used to treat
millions of people worldwide) which are highly specific but cheap enough to manufacture that they
can be used to treat large patient populations.
There is an opportunity to generate peptide drugs for many more illnesses than are practical with
larger biologics and so give the specificity of biologics with fewer systemic side-effects associated
with small molecules and treat larger patient populations with highly targeted, affordable drugs.
About Isis Innovation
Isis Innovation is the research and technology commercialisation company of the University of
Oxford. We provide access to technology from Oxford researchers through intellectual property
licensing, spin-out company formation and material sales, and to academic expertise through Oxford
University Consulting.
Isis is the highest university patent filer in the UK and is ranked 1st in the UK for university spin-outs,
having created over 110 new companies in 25 years. In the last financial year we completed 529
licenses and consulting agreements. Isis Enterprise, our innovation management consultancy, works
with university, government and industrial clients from offices around the world.
Isis was named ‘Technology Transfer Unit of the Year 2014’ by Global University Venturing and in
2015 Isis Enterprise was awarded a Queens Award for Enterprise (International Trade).
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