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Newcastle-based preclinical provider lands £117k funding package

Alcyomics, a pre-clinical service provider, has secured £117k in funding to develop a human skin model, to be utilised in early stage pre-clinical testing.

Headquartered at Newcastle University, the firm’s latest concept will reportedly allow clients to make financial savings, whilst decreasing testing times. Alcyomics received the funds from Innovate UK’s Process Industries North East Launchpad competition for R&D funding.

Innovate UK has invested up to £1m in research and development projects through the competition, aimed at businesses in the process industries.

Anne Dickinson, Founder and Director at Alcyomics, said: “We are delighted to be recognised as one of the North East’s most innovative companies. The funding will allow us to develop our technologies even further whilst commercialising our unique concept which will be the first of its type in the industry.

“Reacting to our clients growing needs, the new model will allow our testing to be more scalable and efficient which, as such, will allow our clients to save time and money, an increasingly important factor in our industry.”

“Competitions such as this provide a great opportunity for companies like ours to gain a faster route to market, and as such, it is extremely rewarding to secure funding from Process Industries North East Launchpad and to know they recognise the potential and commercial opportunity of the Alcyomics model.

Alcyomics Skimune™ technology safely mimics the human immune response in the lab. The company’s unique technology is the only non-animal safety test available on the market which can predict whether or not a drug or chemical will cause an adverse immune response in man.

The current technology relies on utilising human skin and blood donated from healthy volunteers. The new model can carry out a greater number of tests meaning less volunteers are required to participate and which enables costs to be significantly reduced.

Anne added: “The funding will further enable Alcyomics to optimise manufacturing whilst ensuring quality and regulatory compliance. We strongly believe our new model will strengthen our core offering and provide a distinctive approach to pre-clinical testing which will significantly appeal to our existing and future clients.”

The company plans to work with its existing North East process sector cluster clients to trial the new model. To help support the development, Alcyomics is looking to recruit up to two new members of staff.

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