North West biomedical investor SPARK hits £1.7 million milestone

Biomedical investor SPARK Impact has made a milestone investment in healthcare companies across the North West, hitting £1.7 million in investments since the start of December.

SPARK Impact, manager of The North West Fund for Biomedical, has invested a further £1.4 million in follow on funding to its existing portfolio companies.

It has also invested more than £300k into pioneering and high growth new companies developing innovative services and technologies.

The North West Fund for Biomedical is a sub-fund of The North West Fund, a substantial pot of money jointly financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the European Investment Bank and available to invest in small and medium sized businesses in the North West of England to support their start-up, development and growth.

With offices at Liverpool Science Park and BioHub at Alderley Park, the team at SPARK Impact has now invested more than £24.5 million of its £30 million allocation.

One of the companies to receive follow on investment was Daresbury-based Tomorrows Medicines which has developed a website called www.yourtreatmentchoices.com.

The follow on of nearly £250k will enable the business to continue to expand and increase the number of clinical trials as well as further demonstrate and validate its business model.

Cancer therapeutic company Incanthera, based in Manchester, has raised a further £1.3 million jointly from SPARK Impact and Advent International and has also completed several acquisitions to grow its pipeline of exciting opportunities.

The technology, which acts as a ‘smart bomb’ treatment to target solid tumour cells directly with virtually no side effects to the rest of the body, has now received a patent certificate in both Japan and the US.

Gelexir, a spin-out from the University of Manchester, which has developed a novel polymer for rehydrating back discs to relieve pain, has received follow on of £50k and medical device company Swabtech has secured more than £100k..

Dr Andy Round, investment director at SPARK Impact, said: “Our pipeline of investments in the life sciences sector has been extremely healthy since the fund began four years ago - so much so that we were given an extra £5 million from The North West Fund to top up the fund to £30 million.

“We have catalysed the biomedical sector in the North West and unearthed some truly promising innovations which we feel will give a good return to the fund as well as changing the lives of patients.

“The quality and potential of the businesses we have worked with has been very encouraging but we now need to consider where the next tranche and funds will come from.

“Some of these excellent companies need further capital to continue to develop and thrive which means attracting further monies.”

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