Dear ,
The company was founded in 2016 by Dr John Normanton and Mr Tom Sopwith of ArgantriX Ltd., after discussions with Prof Duncan Maskell (M&S Professor of Farm Animal Health, Food Science & Safety and Cambridge Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor) and Prof Monique Simmonds (Deputy Director of Science, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew).
Polypharmakos is an anti-microbial research and development company which has as its core a collaboration with and between the teams at Cambridge and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, accessing expertise in understanding pathogens from Prof Duncan Maskell, Dr Mark Holmes (Cambridge Reader in Microbial Genomics and Veterinary Science) and Prof Clare Bryant (Cambridge Professor of Innate Immunity) at Cambridge, and natural product insight from Prof Monique Simmonds at Kew. Kew’s unparalleled collections of plants and fungi provide an ideal focus for this new venture.
The Technology
Natural product extracts will be extracted & purified at Kew and then screened by Cambridge for compounds with novel anti-microbial actions, which will then be taken by the company through the drug development pathway.
The Company undertook a small Cambridge-funded pilot screening exercise in 2016 in conjunction with the teams of Prof Clare Bryant and Dr Mark Holmes. This revealed a number of active substances in a small sample of selected extracts, indicating that the Kew collections should represent an ideal starting source for new antimicrobials.
In addition, the Company received pilot project funding from Swansea University and Swansea Innovations for the structural characterisation of Seraticin®, a maggot-derived small molecular weight broad spectrum antimicrobial. Polypharmakos has an exclusive option to Seraticin. Polypharmakos’ advantage currently resides in the know-how of its academic collaborators and in the breadth of materials available via Kew. As compounds are elucidated and taken forward for development, patent applications will be filed.
The Market Opportunity
Increasing levels of antibiotic resistance are an issue worldwide. The CDC estimates that the excess annual cost resulting from these infections in the United States is as high as $20 billion. Legislation like the GAIN Act in the US is already focused on encouraging pharmaceutical companies to develop novel antimicrobials. The global systemic antibiotics market was valued at $50 billion in 2016.
The Team
Chief Executive Officer Dr. John Normanton
Previously with Sterix (co-founder) and Ipsen, (Director of Commercial Project Planning). John has broad experience in clinical development, venture funding, technology transfer, strategic IP management, business development & licensing and early stage university spin-out management. Latterly he has provided consultancy advice to academia, start-ups and big pharma.
Chief Operating Officer Tom Sopwith
Tom has lived mainly in India over the past eight years working with government, academia and companies in innovation and commercialisation in the biosciences and human and animal healthcare fields and building collaborations with UK academic institutions. He was formerly CEO and Business Development Director, Sarum Biosciences Ltd, founding director and CEO Metabometrix Ltd. and a
founding director of Imperial College Company Maker Ltd.
Founder Scientist Prof. Duncan Maskell
Marks and Spencer Professor of Farm Animal Health, Food Science and Food Safety and Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Planning and Resources), University of Cambridge. Co-founder of Arrow Therapeutics Ltd and Discuva Ltd with its spin-out, Bactevo Ltd. He is also a Non-Executive Director of the FTSE250 company, Genus plc. Member of Cambridge Enterprise Seed Funds’ Investment Committee.
Founder Scientist Prof. Claire Bryant
Professor of Innate Immunity and a Wellcome Trust Investigator in the Department of Veterinary Medicine. Her research group works on how host Pattern Recognition Receptors (PRRs) recognize bacteria such as Salmonella enterica or Streptococci to activate innate immunity and control infections.
Founder Scientist Dr. Mark Holmes
Reader in Microbial Genomics and Veterinary Science, Director of the Cambridge Clinical Research Outreach Programme and Director of Studies in Clinical Veterinary Medicine. He currently holds £3.5M in research funding from the Medical Research Council for studies on antimicrobial resistance.
Prof. Monique Simmonds
Deputy Director of Science and Head of the Uses of Plants and Fungi group at RBG, Kew. Monique is a leading authority on plant chemistry, ethnobiology and ethnopharmacology.
The Investment Case
Early collaboration with Kew and Cambridge quickly showed hits in a pilot assessment and Polypharmakos will now continue its screening program on over a 1,000 plant and fungal extracts from Kew to broaden the dataset and identify suitable hits as candidates for the next stages in development. The company will further characterise the structure and mechanism of action of Seraticin as it rapidly demonstrates its ability to isolate suitable active entities and elucidate their structure.
There is a strong need for novel antimicrobial entities and Polypharmakos is well-placed to potentially provide solutions with its novel approach to the problem and world-class resources.
