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Mark Clayton

TC Client – Motilent & Partners Receive £1m+ UKRI Funding

July 20, 2020 By Mark Clayton

  • Crohn’s Disease is a chronic inflammatory condition of the intestine affecting people of all ages.
  • There is an urgent need for technology to guide the use of powerful and expensive anti-inflammatory medications.
  • Motilent has been awarded  a prestigious UKRI grant to tackle this challenge.

About the project

Motilent has been awarded a UKRI grant to improve the way Crohn’s Disease is managed in adults and children.

A total of seven projects led by many of the UK’s leading institutions were funded as part of the £16 million call designed to enable the development of disruptive technologies to improve outcomes in chronic and challenging disease areas.  

Working with Great Ormond Street Hospital, University College London (UCL), University of Nottingham (UoN) and IBDrelief, Motilent will develop an improved method of assessing medical imaging data from MRIs of Crohn’s disease patients, while incorporating a range of time and cost saving advances for a routine MRI test.

Approximately 180,000 people live with Crohn’s disease in the UK and there is no cure. Flare ups are managed with powerful but expensive immunosuppressive medications, which have a high failure rate. This project will help ensure the right patients are receiving the right medications at the right time for them.

This image shows three types of MRI scan of the same patient with severe Crohn’s Disease. The blue box represents the area of disease (thickened bowel on the left, low motility in the middle and bright inflamed bowel on the right). The blue circle shows normal bowel. These images are currently interpreted subjectively by Radiologists. The goal of the project is to quantitatively assess the data produced by MRI so smaller changes can be detected to fine tune patient treatment.

What the project partners say

Alex Menys, CEO Motilent: “This project has been a long time in the works and brings together a fantastic and dedicated team with the ability to deliver this exciting programme of work. We’re going to be developing a tool for the radiologist to generate an objective score for Crohn’s Disease activity based on well validated parameters that are currently too time consuming to perform clinically.”

Professor Stuart Taylor, Consultant Radiologist, UCL: “MRI plays an very important role in diagnosing Crohn’s disease as well as treatment planning and monitoring. Interpretation is relatively subjective and time consuming. The software developed in this project will increase both the accuracy and speed of MRI interpretation which will be a significant advance.”

Dr Tom Watson, Consultant Paediatric Radiologist, GOSH: “I am routinely asked to image children as young as 4 with Crohn’s Disease. Imaging the bowel in children can be extremely challenging. An MRI scanner is an intimidating place for an adult let alone a child and on top of that, children need to be still for upwards of 30 minutes using conventional scanning protocols. These protocols often require injection of drugs to highlight areas of inflammation. This requires needles which increases the anxiety for our children with Crohn’s. For me, high quality, high speed imaging without the need for injections would be a huge leap forward. At GOSH we’ll be taking the latest advances in adult imaging and analysis and ensuring they’re relevant to our paediatric population.”

Dr. Gordon Moran, Consultant Gastroenterologist, UoN: “This project is going to help me get a quantitative score for Crohn’s Disease activity which especially in the small bowel is hugely important for assessing treatment response with powerful expensive medications. We’re also going to be able to tie our existing work in fibrosis imaging at UoN into a new protocol expanding the clinical utility of the technique.”

Seb Tucknott, CEO of IBDrelief, said: “This project is really exciting and could have some big benefits for patients with Crohn’s disease in the small bowel, helping them to receive more targeted treatments in a more timely fashion. At IBDrelief we are passionate about ensuring that patients are involved in every stage of research and development to achieve the best outcomes possible, so we are delighted to be working with Motilent and partners to make sure this project helps make a big difference to patients as well as clinical teams.”

What happens next?

This project is now well underway and we’ll up providing regular updates. Follow us on Linkedin or Twitter or email us at info@motilent.co.uk.

Our partners can be found at:

UCL Centre for Medical Imaging

University of Nottingham BRC

IBDrelief

Great Ormond Street Hospital


About Motilent

Motilent is a medical imaging technology company that aims to make some of the latest and most exciting image analysis technologies available to the researchers who can use them to make the important scientific advances required to advance our understanding of gastrointestinal disease.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: grants funding innovation innovateUK

TC Client – Sano Gentics & Genomics England secure £500k+ to build ethics into genetics

July 12, 2020 By Mark Clayton

Patrick Short, CEO and co-founder of Sano Genetics, at the Bradfield Centre. Picture: Keith Heppell
Patrick Short, CEO and co-founder of Sano Genetics, at the Bradfield Centre. Picture: Keith Heppell

Sano Genetics is beginning to reshape the discussion about what happens to your sequenced DNA thanks to a software platform which links the public to the genetic research community.

The company’s personalised medicine platform links researchers with individuals’ genomic profiles, crucially putting the individual in charge of access to their own sequenced data.

Formed in 2016, Sano’s three co-founders – Patrick Short, Will Jones and Charlotte Guzzo – met while doing PhDs at the university. Patrick was studying mathematical genomics and medicine, Will computer science and machine learning with a focus on image data in biology, and Charlotte finance, neuroscience and the genomics of childhood cancer.

“We started working on the company in late 2016 as a hobby – a side project,” says Patrick at the company’s base at the Bradfield Centre on Cambridge Science Park. “We saw a couple of problems we thought we could help solve. One was that it was challenging getting hold of genomic data so new approaches were very important.

“The second was data privacy and putting people at the heart of the research process. It’s important people know where their data is going when they sign up for a test.

“We have a duty as scientists to ensure that people are involved in the research and I think it’s really important to give people ownership of how their data is being used – this is very much the DNA of Sano.

“Users can be comfortable and confident because there’s full visibility in the process.”

Sano Genetics has created a dashboard which helps the public retain control of their genomic data. Picture: Keith Heppell
Sano Genetics has created a dashboard which helps the public retain control of their genomic data. Picture: Keith Heppell

So how, I ask Patrick, can genomics reassure the public that there won’t be a social media-style model – as discussed at a recent public event – where consumer data is collected, then sold to third parties and used to target them with products and services related to their genetic circumstances?

“In terms of the business model I strongly believe you get better data if people trust you – trust is essential if you’re doing business today,” Patrick replies. “People are beginning to understand that this is big business and you can’t always trust the way things turn out, so we have a dashboard which enables you to see who is accessing your data, and whether you want to allow them to access it – similar, for instance, to allowing people to opt-out of political ads on Facebook, or saying you don’t want companies to use your data to sell you ads for, say, Coca-Cola… it’s important to get the system right at the start so people are in control.”

Sano Genetics’ public-facing dashboard involves uploading your data which is then matched to any research in progress.

If it matches, researchers may want to acquire it to further their understanding of specific disorders, but the dashboard user retains ownership of his or her data and chooses whether to give permission for any organisation to use it in their research. The user can then track the research as it progresses.

“With our dashboard anyone who’s already had their genome sequenced can upload it to their profile, it takes two minutes,” says Patrick, “and if they haven’t had their genome sequenced they add their details and we match them to where they can get their genome sequenced for free.

“It’s not always successful, researchers are working to strict guidelines, but the more people and research projects we have the easier it becomes to match.”

If researchers are interested in your medical profile but you haven’t had your genome sequenced then Sano Genetics can send you a sequencing kit, which includes a saliva test. The sample is then sent to the research organisation which decides whether to have the genome sequenced.

The platform is investment-friendly and the company closed a £500,000 seed funding earlier this month.

DNA sequencing is becoming more common - and the industry has to self-regulate to ensure ethical standards are fully operational, says Patrick Short of Sano Genetics
DNA sequencing is becoming more common – and the industry has to self-regulate to ensure ethical standards are fully operational, says Patrick Short of Sano Genetics

“The first investor was Seedcamp, then Cambridge Enterprise, plus quite a few Cambridge investors, with angels from Cambridge and London.

“The money is for hiring smart people mostly – we’re building a software platform which requires software engineering, bioinformatics, and science communication skills – and a small bit of capital expenditure on sequencing kits.”

The seed round was announced soon after a name change: the founding trio originally incorporated the vehicle as ‘Heterogeneous’ in 2017. So what happened?

“It was felt that Heterogeneous was a bit unwieldy, scientists know the word [‘diverse’ or ‘varying’] but others don’t,” Patrick says, “so we had a look at it from a practical perspective.”

Heterogeneous officially became Sano Genetics on April 9.

“The legal change had happened before, and the trademark was registered months earlier. ‘Sano’ means ‘health’ in Latin and many Romance languages.”

The wider connotations of health include a commitment to ethical standards. An organisation such a Sano Genetics, with a baked-in ethical code, is very welcome, but isn’t it time for an industry regulator?

“It’s a hard one,” says Patrick, “because it’s very challenging for regulators to keep up with the pace of technology, so companies also have to self-regulate.

“It’s not enough to say ‘it’s the wild wild west out there’. We have an internal framework for the reports we create and research we support.

“So for instance in breast cancer or cardiovascular disease you can see good progress in using genetic testing but other disorders – such as Alzheimer’s – what you can do once you know you are at risk is much less clear, and is much more in the research phase.

“We as a company really focus on aspects where you can really trust the science and provide information that is both interesting and actionable. That’s where we can make a difference.

“We think of what we are doing as direct-to-consumer research.

“Rather than selling reports to everyone, we focus on research areas where we know we can make an impact.

“Right now people can sign up for four specific research projects on the platform – psoriasis, muscular dystrophy, Phelan McDermid syndrome and a study on stomach ulcers resulting from taking aspirin.”

If you or your family suffer from any of these you may find the Sano Genetics platform of particular interest.

“We have 2,000 participants enrolled on the platform now,” adds Patrick. “We also have several patient group partnerships, so we can reach many more by working with them.

“They’re primarily in the UK, Europe and the US, but could be anywhere. You’ll often find people are really engaged in finding research, and there are people dedicating their lives to improving research in rare disorders.”

Very true. And to the names of those improving research in rare disorders can now be added that of Sano Genetics.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

TC Clients – £210,000 Innovate UK funding for Agritech SME LST

June 4, 2020 By Mark Clayton

We are pleased to advise that we have secured a grant of £210k for an innovative lighting and sensor SME to develop new technology for the agriculture and vertical farming industries.

Please get in contact for more details.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

£1.2m won in latest Innovate UK SMART round

March 16, 2020 By Mark Clayton

Very pleased to announce that we have secured over £1.2m for 4 SME clients from the latest Innovate UK SMART round.

Full details will be published once the projects have been announced.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

£1,574,006 Innovate UK grant secured for digital medical imaging company

December 3, 2019 By Mark Clayton

Further details to follow but this now takes our total of funding secured above £38.5m!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

£3,955,354 (!!!) innovation grant secured advanced manufacturing consortium

November 5, 2019 By Mark Clayton

We are very pleased to announce that we have secured a £4m innovation grant for an advanced manufacturing consortium including;

  • UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
  • UNIVERSITY OF LINCOLN
  • INTELLIGENT MAINTENANCE SYSTEMS LIMITED
  • DIGITAL CATAPULT
  • CHEP UK LIMITED
  • R3 LIMITED
  • SWEETBRIDGE EMEA LTD
  • TATA COMMUNICATIONS (UK) LIMITED
  • WORLDLINE IT SERVICES UK LIMITED

One of the largest Innovate UK grant given out this year, this takes our total amount of grant funding secured for UK businesses to well over £37m.

The Made Smarter Review estimated the UK food and drink industry could realise £56bn in productivity growth and efficiency savings over a 10year period through the wide-spread adoption and integration of novel IDTs across the supply chain.

Working with a large consortium of manufacturers, supply chain partners, industrial digital technology (IDTs) suppliers, trade and governmental organisations, Raynor Foods Ltd, a leading UK sandwich will develop a national and open demonstrator of a digitalised food supply chain – an open multi-party software platform, connecting supply and value chain stakeholders from food primary production to retail to increase business productivity, agility and resilience.

Although this is a national food supply chain demonstrator, the UK sandwich industry is worth over £5.6bn, employs over 325k people and is growing at 4.2%CAGR. Recent, well-publicised, health and safety issues (NHS Listeria outbreak and Pret/allergic reaction) have thrust issues around production methodology, traceability and accountability in the supply chain into the public-eye .

The highly-fragmented, fast-moving nature of these supply chains leaves critical segments of the industry suffering a perfect storm of challenges, impacting labour (availability / cost) and resource productivity, waste (product and financial), brexit impacts on international supply chains and consumer safety.

Although the adoption of new IDT technologies such as Blockchain-DLT, integrated IoT platforms and AI analytics has occurred in large, international companies, there are an estimated 10,000 SME suppliers who can’t afford/don’t have access to these technologies, and without industry-wide adoption (and IDT compatibility) the benefit of IDT has so far been limited.

In this collaborative proposal, we will fuse 3 IDT’s (Blockchain-DLT, IoT and AI) and demonstrate them within a sandwich manufacturing supply chain. Via immutable traceability, a Blockchain-DLT enabled supply chain will drive trust across the food sector, IoT will integrate critical meta data and new AI driven analytics will drive productivity/ reduce waste.

Technologies developed will be demonstrated by Raynor Foods . When scaled nationally this novel integrated stack of IDT’s will optimise and simplify national, cross border and international food supply chains, increase productivity by ~10%, reduce inventory waste by ~14% and generate £2.8bn GVA within 10 years.

Whilst food and digital sectors are the exemplars in this demonstrator project, the consortium’s vision (particularly the technology partners) and priority will be to share best practices, technology and learning across multiple industrial domains that have complex, fast moving and high trust requiring supply chains such as pharma, aerospace, automotive etc.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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