Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

The legacy left by Swiss pharma giant, Roche, in the region continues with the decision by anti-cancer drug developer, Antisoma, to relocate its pre and nonclinical operations at the Hertfordshire BioPark in Welwyn Garden City.

Around 20 Antisoma staff have moved into 6,000 sq ft of refurbished laboratory space from facilities at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, London, with further recruitment underway. The level of investment underpinning the move has not been disclosed.

Antisoma joins nine other bioscience and health technology businesses on the BioPark, which was formerly the Roche Products research centre, but is now an affiliate company of the University of Hertfordshire.

The move is part of an across the board company relocation, which sees other divisions moving away from Ealing and setting up in Chiswick.

Director of Research for Antisoma, Dr Fiona McLaughlin, said the positioning between the biotech hotbeds of Cambridge, London and Oxford – popularly known as the ‘Golden Triangle’ – as well as the relative ease of access to the new HQ in Chiswick, made Hertfordshire a sound choice for location. The quality of the BioPark facilities was the deciding factor.

“The BioPark is probably the closest science park to London as its only 25 minutes on the mainline from King’s Cross,” said Dr McLaughlin. “Also as the old Roche facility, it has labs which have been refurbished to a very high standard.”

Antisoma was founded in 1988 and employs approximately 70 people at offices in London and Princeton, New Jersey, and at laboratories in Hertfordshire.

In its half year results for the six months ended 31 December 2007 Antisoma took revenues of £16.5m (2006: £0.3m) with a pre-tax profit of £4.1m, a £11.6m turnaround from its 2006 loss of £7.5m.

It specialises in the preclinical and clinical development of novel drugs for the treatment of cancer, filling its development pipeline by acquiring promising new drug candidates from internationally recognised academic or cancer research institutions.

For instance the firm took on a new product following an April deal with Swedish biotech, Betagenon, licensing the rights to develop and commercialise its AMPK (AMP activated protein kinase) activators in cancer indications, “another promising addition to our preclinical oncology portfolio,” according to Antisoma CEO, Glyn Edwards.

Antisoma will continue the preclinical evaluation of AMPK activators from Betagenon’s pipeline and the two companies have also formed a collaboration to explore further the potential of AMPK-based approaches to cancer treatment.

Portfolio drugs are then taken through the clinical trials process by Antisoma or out-licensed, such as its most advanced drug, lung cancer treatment ASA404, which triggered a $25m milestone payment from Novartis in April when it entered Phase III trials.

William Sprigings, marketing director of BioPark Hertfordshire, said: “It is most encouraging that this leading cancer drug developer is joining us. We look forward to the further growth of BioPark as a centre for biomedical innovation and enterprise.”