Laverock Therapeutics, developer of a unique gene silencing platform for the creation of programmable advanced therapies, has been awarded £1m in funding, made up of a £700k grant from Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, and supported by co-funding from the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) through the Investor Partnerships Programme.
The award will enable Laverock to progress its immune effector cell therapeutic programme aiming to combat hard-to-treat cancers, via use of its gene editing induced gene silencing (GEiGS) technology.
The Innovate UK and UKI2S funded project will provide access to patient derived, highly disease relevant experimental tools. This will aid preclinical evaluation and the generation of key data in support of Laverock’s programmable macrophage and T-cell programmes developed using its unique GEiGS technology. This will facilitate informed decision making on the selection of future oncology therapeutic candidates.
Support from Innovate UK and UKI2S will also allow Laverock to strengthen internal capabilities in immune oncology by building an oncology focused team and facilitating collaboration with leading centres of excellence. These collaborations will focus on patients’ needs and enable the development of more targeted therapeutic products for the communities that will benefit.
Tim Allsopp, Chief Technology Officer of Laverock Therapeutics, said: “We’re tremendously excited by this achievement and the public-private endorsement of our technology that Innovate co-funding provides. We’d like to thank Innovate UK and UKI2S for their support and look forward to integrating our novel gene silencing GEiGS platform into more effective therapeutic designs for the benefit of the global cancer patient community.”
Oliver Sexton, UKI2S Investment Director, added: “UKI2S is delighted to invest alongside Innovate UK as a member of the Investor Partnerships scheme. As an investor, Innovate UK’s support for additional programmes provides a powerful tool to accelerate development and de-risk investment. Innovate UK and UKI2S’s equity is helping Laverock add to its pipeline of ground-breaking therapies.”
This award follows the company’s recent expansion of its seed funding round to £13.5m.
