Alex Blyth thought his company had a genius strategy to reinvent cancer treatment. By examining the immunity of the lucky few who had no family history of the disease, Lift Biosciences discovered a potential treatment to destroy tumours for everyone else. Then the cell therapy hit a snag: it did not work when tested on mice.
The bad news came just as Blyth was about to sign a £20mn-plus fundraising round for his Cambridge-based biotech. Investors were shaken by the poor data from the pre-clinical study and, suddenly, he could only raise £5mn, at a lower valuation.
But Lift’s chief scientist Oxana Polyakova turned to a novel technology that replicates a miniature human tumour in a dish: a tumoroid. When used on the tumoroid the drug “totally trashed” the cancer, Blyth says, to the point where a patient would have been in complete remission.
“It showed we had something that really worked. Investors were thrilled: they had just come in at the lower round,” he says. “I wasn’t so thrilled.”
Roger Guillemin identified the molecules in the brain that control the production of hormones in…
In 2007, Sinclair wrote the article “Healthy Hair: What is it?” in which he stated,…
We spoke to John Chave, director-general at trade body Cosmetics Europe, about changing regulations, what’s…