A North East biotech company that spun out of Durham University has sealed a six-figure funding deal to ramp up its work.
Magnitude Biosciences Ltd, based at NETPark in Sedgefield, uses nematode worms as a faster and cheaper way to carry out early pre-clinical drug development and academic research. The company, which was founded in 2018 by biosciences expert Dr David Weinkove and physicist Dr Christopher Saunters, has now secured £500,000 to accelerate its research, which could slow ageing or treat age-related diseases.
It has secured a Future Economy Investor Partnerships grant of nearly £250,000 from Innovate UK, which will be matched by an investment from the North East (ERDF) Innovation Fund Limited Partnership, supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Northstar Ventures Limited.
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The North East (ERDF) Innovation Fund Limited Partnership is currently an investor in Magnitude Biosciences, having closed a fourth round of investment to accelerate the scaling of its business last November in response to rapidly growing customer demand for its services.
Its growing team of staff provides research services to the longevity, nutraceuticals, and pharmaceutical industries by using C. elegans, a nematode worm, to identify compounds that could slow ageing or prevent age-related diseases. C. elegans has physiological similarities to humans and has been used by scientists investigating the mechanism of ageing for over 40 years. It has a very short lifespan so compounds can be assessed in just seven days.
Magnitude Biosciences has already developed its own novel imaging technology to monitor the effects of compounds on C. elegans. This grant will enable further automation to be introduced to increase the number of compounds that can be screened.
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