Latest UK Life Sciences News

TheraCryf has proposed a placing and subscription to raise £1.05m, funding completion of the clinic-enabling programme for its lead Orexin-1 antagonist addiction asset ahead of a planned partnering deal. The company has also filed a process patent that could extend commercial protection to 2046 and identified an accelerated Phase 1 pathway in Australia, extending its cash runway to the end of Q1 2027.

CamGene Therapeutics has received Innovate UK funding, part of a £2m package backing nine UK projects developing non-animal approaches to medicines development. The grant supports CamGene's collaboration with Cambridge University spin-out COSA Ltd to build ultra-precise 3D-printed ear models, giving the company a more accurate way to study how its LNP-mRNA hearing loss therapies move from the middle to the inner ear without relying on animal studies.

Silence Therapeutics has closed its upsized underwritten public offering of 14,907,407 American Depositary Shares at $13.50 per ADS, after underwriters fully exercised their option to purchase additional shares. The offering generated gross proceeds of approximately $201.3 million, up from an initial target of $150 million.

Redx Pharma has entered a definitive transaction agreement to be acquired by Nasdaq-listed Skye Bioscience via a scheme of arrangement, with the combined company trading as Fibrx Therapeutics and led by Redx's current management team and board. The combination is backed by approximately $125 million in concurrent financings, including a $36 million Series A led by new investor Abingworth, and is expected to complete in Q4 2026.

CN Bio has been awarded £180k in grant funding from Innovate UK, delivered in partnership with the NC3Rs, to develop new approach methodologies for pharmacokinetic studies. The project will integrate data from CN Bio's multi-organ microphysiological systems with physiologically-based pharmacokinetic models, supporting the UK Government's roadmap to cut dog and non-human primate use in PK studies by 35% by 2030.

Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals has signed a definitive Collaboration Agreement with Cellin Technologies for the manufacturing and clinical implementation of HG-CT-1, its CAR-T therapy for relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukaemia, in Estonia under the Hospital Exemption framework. The deal converts a September 2025 letter of intent into a binding agreement, appoints Cellin as exclusive Estonian manufacturing and operational partner for five years, and marks Hemogenyx's first potential near-term revenue opportunity for HG-CT-1.

Oxford BioDynamics has conditionally raised £9.15 million through a placing of new shares, with proceeds earmarked for its EpiSwitch Orion platform partnerships, PSE and CiRT test commercialisation, and pipeline validation work. The company disclosed a serious loss of capital under the Companies Act 2006 and said existing cash would be exhausted by early September without the raise, which is subject to shareholder approval at a general meeting on 26 August.

Mironid has closed a €39.9 million ($46 million) Series B round to advance its lead candidate for Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease through clinical development. The round was led by the Scottish National Investment Bank, joined by existing backers including Roche Venture Fund, Epidarex Capital, and Sofinnova Partners, bringing total funding since inception to €40.8 million.

Codis completed its acquisition of Catalent's Nottingham facility, expanding its UK spray-drying and oral solid dose capabilities alongside its existing Haverhill site.

Scancell Holdings has raised £15.7 million in gross proceeds through a significantly oversubscribed UK placing and retail offer. The funds will support Scancell's merger with US biotech Neuphoria Therapeutics, creating a dual-listed group, and fund a global Phase III trial of its lead cancer immunotherapy for advanced melanoma, with primary results expected by late 2028.

BeCertain, a spinout from King's College London and the University of Surrey, has raised £1.7m in a pre-seed round led by Sure Valley Ventures' second fund and supported by Innovate UK's Investor Partnership Growth Catalyst programme. The funding will advance BeCertain's uncertainty-aware AI platform for interpreting 2D intraoral dental X-rays, which builds on an earlier £1.75m NIHR i4i Product Development Award.

Moa Technology has raised £22.2 million in Series C funding, co-led by Oxford Science Enterprises and Supernova Invest, to advance its three most advanced novel mode-of-action herbicide programmes toward commercialisation. The company has research partnerships with Nufarm, Gowan, Certis Belchim and Corteva Agriscience, and will use part of the funding to further develop Moa Amplifiers, compounds that reduce the concentration of herbicide needed to control weeds.

Epoch Biodesign has acquired a mothballed nylon 6,6 polymerisation plant in Blanes, Spain, from the insolvent Spanish arm of Domo Chemicals for just over €4 million. The 52,000-tonne-a-year facility gives Epoch commercial-scale polymerisation capacity to pair with its AI-designed enzymatic recycling technology, making it the first enzymatic nylon recycler to own production at this scale, and safeguards around 60 jobs at the site.

MORF-Bio has secured an Innovate UK Investor Partnerships Award, unlocking a new investment round led by Deeptech Seed Fund and matched by Helix Research and Enterprise. The funding will support integration of the company's microbial bioinformatics tools into a connected platform centred on a Microbial Digital Twin, linking genomes, predictive metabolic models and multi-omics data.

Wild Bioscience has acquired wheat breeding business F1 Seed, forming what it calls the UK's first independent precision-breeding wheat business. The deal combines F1 Seed's decade-old germplasm pipeline and six commercial wheat varieties with Wild Bioscience's AI-led trait discovery and gene editing, positioning the combined business to design, breed and deliver new varieties without relying on multinational seed companies.

Engitix has signed a target-specific licensing agreement with Lonza for its GlycoConnect, HydraSpace and SYNtecan E linker-payload technologies, giving Engitix access to Lonza's ADC platform to develop therapies against targets identified through its extracellular matrix discovery platform. Lonza is eligible for upfront, milestone and royalty payments; Engitix leads research, development and commercialisation.

Alchemab Therapeutics has closed a $25 million Series A extension to advance its antibody discovery pipeline for neurodegenerative disease.

Theolytics has secured €8 million in funding from Horizon Europe 2025 to advance a planned Phase 2 study of THEO-260, its lead oncolytic immunotherapy candidate, in ovarian cancer. The company has also relocated to a new facility at ARC Oxford to support the programme's continued development.

Novartis has agreed to acquire Myricx Bio for $1.1bn upfront, with up to $400m in potential milestone payments. The acquisition adds Myricx's N-myristoyltransferase inhibitor (NMTi) antibody-drug conjugate payload platform to the Novartis oncology pipeline, including two lead assets targeting B7-H3 and HER2, and is expected to close in H2 2026 subject to regulatory approval.