Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

The team, led by Clive Birch, advised the company on its public offering.

Priority was given to employees of Imperial College and Imperial Innovations, which raised £1.5 million, with a further £25 million being raised from institutional investors.

Imperial Innovations is one of the leaders in the UK field of technology transfer and commercialisation through the structuring of licensing deals and the transfer of intellectual property into newly formed companies.

It was established in 1986 by Imperial College to protect and exploit commercial opportunities arising from their research, primarily in the fields of science, engineering and medicine.

The group has a portfolio of approximately 90 commercial intellectual property and licensing agreements and as at April 30 had equity holdings in 58 spin-out companies.

Clive Birch, Cambridge senior partner, for Pricewater-houseCoopers said: “The success of the Imperial Innovations placing and AIM admission clearly demonstrates that interest continues to be shown in the commercialisation of UK R&D.

“The company chose specifically to work with our Cambridge office where they were able to draw on the specific expertise required. We look forward to working with Imperial Innovations in the future as it actively pursues its strategy of developing technologies being created within the UK.”

Teri Willey, director, Cambridge Enterprise, Univ-ersity of Cambridge added: “It’s interesting to see such a level of investor interest in this public offering. It certainly confirms our view that serious investors continue to look to universities as an important source of entrepreneurial activity in the UK.”