Venture capital funding for UK life sciences surged in 2014

Venture Capital (VC) backing for UK life science companies soared by 41pc last year to hit $713m (£527m), according to figures seen by The Sunday Telegraph.

The sharp increase in funding for the sector is centred on the so-called “golden triangle” of London, Oxford and Cambridge, and signals a “coming of age” for the sector, according to one investor, Kate Bingham.

Ms Bingham, managing partner at VC firm SV Life Sciences, said the funding reflected a crop of “very exciting new companies conducting highly innovative and nimble R&D [research and development] programmes”. She added that a number of biotech companies in the UK had shown some “spectacular” results in early human trials recently.

A particularly hot area for venture capitalists last year was immunotherapy – supercharging the body’s own immune system to fight off disease – with two of the three largest funding rounds belonging to companies developing this kind of treatment.

Oxford-based Adaptimmune raised $104m from investors spanning New Enterprise Associates, Wellington Management and the University of Oxford.

Cell Medica, a London-based group, attracted $78.57m in a funding round led by Imperial Innovations, the venture capital spin-out from the eponymous university.

Both groups are developing therapies that enhance the immune response of the body’s T-cells, a type of white blood cell, to cancer and infectious diseases.

Research services provider Syngene International claimed second place, while Oxford Nanopore Technologies, which develops tools to detect biological molecules for research purposes, and Enigma Diagnostics, which produces easy-to-use genetic tests, were in fourth and fifth place. They raised $97.5m, $59m and $50m respectively.

Dr Eliot Forster, head of Boris Johnson’s MedCity project, aimed at promoting the “golden triangle” to the rest of the world, welcomed the news.

“A healthy, growing life sciences sector is critical to a nation’s economic and social well-being, and the UK needs to nurture an environment that supports the companies already present and attracts others from around the world to set up here. Liquidity is key to growing a strong, diverse set of life sciences clusters, so this rise in VC investment is very good news indeed.”

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