Looking ahead to a year of Eastern promise being delivered in Life Sciences

Record levels of investment rounds and deals announced, including by our champions, such as AstraZeneca’s deal to acquire Gracell for $1.2 billion, providing the backdrop for positive sentiments about the 2024 outlook.

We heard at the Genesis conference in December about the optimism that Pharma deals with biotech will gather momentum due to those larger players needing to replenish their pipelines, combat the impending patent cliff, Biotechs needing deals and some clear hot areas of disease and modalities.

There is no dispute that the past couple of years have been among the more challenging for our innovative scientists and entrepreneurs. The financing landscape had remained significantly suppressed compared to the previous years due to lacklustre public markets, slow M & A deal flow and legislation to control drug cost pricing all contributing. But there is money out there, deals are starting to gain momentum and interest rates are falling as we head into 2024.

The impending patent cliff facing Pharma will drive deal appetite as some of the key high-selling medicines, including locally discovered Adalimumab (Humira) where we saw the FDA approve nine biosimilars this past year.

Eighty percent of the top 20 selling drugs last year originated outside the seller’s organisation and that there are not enough innovative new medicines in the combined sector’s clinical pipeline to replace those falling off patent means Pharma are keen to get involved with the emerging biotechs.

Leading companies locally such as Alchemab, PhoreMost, Microbiotica, Artios Pharma, Mission Therapeutics, Bicycle Therapeutics and more have much to attract partners.

More recent entrants such as Maxion, T-Therapeutics, Macomics, CHARM Therapeutics and many others offer opportunities going forward as their projects develop. Perhaps there was an early indicator of this region’s deal attraction when we saw Adrestia acquired by Insmed Pharma in mid-2023.

Areas that are predicted to have strong demand for deal flow include Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADC’s), Cell & Gene Therapy, Nucleotide-based therapeutics and perhaps a re-emergence of interest in radio-pharmaceuticals.

Therapeutics areas such as oncology and inflammatory diseases are likely to stay attractive and a growing interest in CNS disorders and obesity sparked by recent approvals may feature.

It is striking how well placed this region is when it comes to activity in these key areas. Alongside the companies mentioned earlier, there are numerous other R & D businesses, key innovation hubs and investors that will help anchor and drive growth in these key foci.

The hubs include establishments such as the Wellcome Genome Campus & Sanger Centre, The Cell & Gene Therapy Manufacturing Centre, Cambridge Biomedical Campus and Babraham Institute filling the ideation space for R & D enablers large and small such as Illumina, Revvity, Charles River Labs, Metrion Biosciences, Domainex, RxCellerate and Nuclera to bridge to our primary R & D biotechs.

Broaden that a little to include the continuing, if now not fully converged, TechBio space and large technology plays such as Google and Microsoft which all bring even more power to this region’s innovation capacity.

This convergence is enabling greater collection of, and access to, patient data and Real-World Evidence (RWE) and is producing many insights for precision medicine, rare disease treatments and regulatory robustness like never before.

There is a much bigger picture than biomedical research alone when one considers other factors that impact human longevity. The ability to prolong life in itself becomes much more attractive and aligning health-span and life-span durations is a key goal in this regard.

Healthier living achieved through better nutrition and lifestyle and earlier interventions in conditions where needed is pivotal if we are to make best use of the innovative medicines being developed.

The now often quoted terminology around ‘People, Profit and Planet’ reflects an increasingly holistic approach and need to longevity that encompasses how global challenges of both health and climate can and need to be addressed together.

It is hard to think of a better location than the East of England where research collaboration across disciplines such as infrastructure & climate impact, agriculture & food production, advanced manufacturing & packaging and health surveillance & biomedical research could intersect.

Add to the above, for example, the work at Norwich Research Park which includes Earlham, John Innes and Quadram Institutes and the work of the Institute for Manufacturing and you see a truly holistic base from which to innovate to protect longevity of life and the planet.

The region is also well blessed to have connected and collaborative networks such as Agritech-E, Cambridge Cleantech and One Nucleus to create mixed forum opportunities.

One Nucleus will continue working with all stakeholders to seek the development of suitable space and talent pools to enable sustainable growth of the cluster.

Through the ongoing activities and new initiatives such as the Boston Bootcamp, Awards Dinner and Training Sat Nav, we look forward to being with our region’s champions every step of the way during what could be a golden year.