The Opportunity

The past 20 years have witnessed an explosion of techniques for the characterisation of biological molecules. From the advent of high throughput screening techniques to the rapid progress towards low-cost genome sequencing, the tools available for scientists to characterise biological systems have never been so complete or advanced so rapidly.

The Human Genome Project has come a wealth of information about the susceptibility of individuals to certain diseases and disorders. The resultant wave of investment in new genetic screening technologies and services has triggered an ongoing transformation of attitudes towards the use of biological analytic tools to guide the application of medical care. Accompanying these changing attitudes has been a staggering increase in the accuracy of genetic screening tests, and a corresponding drop in the time and cost of performing them.

Despite these rapid advances in nucleic acid characterisation, corresponding advances in the study of proteins – the direct markers of disease onset – have been negligible. A major impediment to such advances is the fact that protein analysis largely relies on tools, including immunoassays and optical spectroscopy, that have fundamentally not changed for several decades. This state of affairs has left protein scientists encumbered by tools that are imprecise, time-consuming, costly or all three of the above.

There is a pressing need for new analytical tools for protein characterisation.

The Market

Proteins are the main components of the physiological metabolic pathway of cells, and are the key molecules capable of directly signalling a difference between healthy and diseased states in living organisms. More than 25,000 research facilities in universities, government laboratories and commercial research facilities devote several billion dollars per year towards basic research, drug development, advanced diagnostics for disease detection, and agricultural research. 

Despite a rapid growth rate and already large market size, the protein measurement segment makes up just 10% of the US$75bn global market for life science tools and instrumentation. The growing emphasis on protein analytics in everything from the development of biological drugs to the characterisation of pathological disease states through biomarkers implies an enormous potential for explosive growth in the protein analytics segment. 

Immediate Addressable Market Segment In Excess of £150m (US$225m). 

Building on the commercial foothold established by the Flow Mk1, Fluidic Analytics will market second-generation lab-based analytics products that will offer additional capabilities and address market segments estimated at between £200m and £400m each.

Management / Team

Dr Andrew Lynn, Chief Executive Officer, is an entrepreneur and executive with a focus on early-stage life-sciences and technology opportunities. Andrew founded the regenerative medical device company Orthomimetics Ltd, based on his PhD thesis at the University of Cambridge. He then led the company as CEO from incorporation to successful trade-sale exit. During his tenure at Orthomimetics, the company raised £7.5million in venture capital and grant funding, established commercial-scale manufacturing capabilities and brought the flagship product through pilot clinical trials to market. In 2009, he led a process that culminated in the successful sale of the company, generating a strong return for shareholders in one of the most profitable small-cap exits of 2009 worldwide. Since 2011, Dr Lynn has advised a portfolio of early-stage ventures including solid-state-lighting venture CamGaN Limited, which he led as CEO from the commencement of operations to a successful exit. His efforts have earned him recognition in both Europe and the US as one of the world’s top young innovators, leaders and entrepreneurs. 

Dr Tuomas Knowles, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, holds a personal Readership in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and is also a Fellow of St John’s College Cambridge. Tuomas received his PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge, and has held positions in Engineering in Cambridge and Harvard University before returning to Cambridge as a University Lecturer in 2010 and then Reader in 2013. His current research interests are focused on using physical approaches to study the self-assembly of protein molecules both in the context of disease and for the synthesis of novel functional biomaterials. Dr Knowles has received a number of distinguished awards, most recently from the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Newman Foundation and the European Research Council. Dr Knowles has co-authored over 60 peer-reviewed scientific articles.

Professor Christopher Dobson, Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board, received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1976, having worked on the application of chemical and physical techniques to probe the structures and dynamics of biological molecules, particularly proteins. After a short period as a Research Fellow he moved to Harvard University as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and was also a Visiting Scientist at MIT. In 1980 he returned to the University of Oxford first as a Lecturer in Chemistry and later as Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Oxford Centre for Molecular Sciences. In 2001 he moved to the University of Cambridge as John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Chemical and Structural Biology. In 2007 he was awarded the degree of ScD by the University and in the same year became Master of St John's College, Cambridge. Professor Dobson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1996 and of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2005. In 2007 he was elected to Honorary Foreign Membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2009 he was awarded the Royal Medal by the Royal Society "for his outstanding contributions to the understanding of the mechanisms of protein folding and mis-folding, and the implications for disease." 

Dr Anthony Colletta, Chairman, is an experienced financier, executive and director in the life sciences industry. Dr Anthony was awarded a Doctorate from King’s College Hospital School of Medicine, and from 1984 through 1995 held a series of distinguished research positions, including that of Group Head at the Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden Hospital in London, where he remains a lifetime honorary research fellow. In 1995, Dr Colletta was recruited to the post of Head of Healthcare Equity Research and Investment Banking at ABN AMRO, leading the healthcare group at ABN AMRO private equity. From 2000-2004, he served as Managing Director responsible for global healthcare equity research at Dresdner Bank in London, from 2004-2006 as CEO and Head of Global Healthcare Funds for Satellite Asset Management, and from 2006-2011 as Managing Partner at In Vivo Capital and Technikos Capital. Dr Colletta has managed more than 50 healthcare and life sciences investments and multi-hundred-million-pound portfolios. He currently acts as an angel investor and independent director and has sat on the board of more than 15 small-cap companies that have achieved successful exits. 

Mr Colin Hailey, Non-Executive Director, joined Arthur Andersen in 1995 in London and worked on large cross border transactions, transfer pricing issues and listings. He transferred to Deloitte in 2002 and moved from London to the Cambridge office in 2003 to act as the Corporate Finance and Tax Expert for early stage biotechnology and clean tech companies. Colin became an Associate Partner at Deloitte in 2009, before leaving in 2010 to set up Confluence Tax LLP. Colin specialises in working with VC backed and owner-managed companies in the technology and biotechnology sectors, and served as Chief Financial Officer of CamGaN Limited from founding until its acquisition by Plessey Semiconductors. Colin sits on the Finance and Tax Advisory Committee of the BioIndustry Association and is regularly involved in consultation work with HM Treasury and HMRC. He is a regular speaker on tax issues relevant to the knowledge economy. 

Dr Thomas Mueller, Operations Director, is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge. Dr Mueller obtained his PhD in experimental physics from ETH Zurich where he developed fast high-precision sensing techniques for single-electron tunnelling in semiconductor nanostructures. He has been involved in a number of projects centred around manipulation and quantification of nanomolecules using microfluidic technologies. These include among others approaches for off-line detection, diffusional sizing, as well as centrifugal and electrophoretic separation.