Innovation community news – April

Image caption: ©TreQ. All Rights Reserved.

News and announcements from Milton Park based companies:

• Oxitec begins construction of major Brazil facility 
• Pathios Therapeutics appoints Chief Medical Officer 
• Physiomics awarded new contract 
• TreQ awarded £1.65 million grant to develop quantum testbed 

Oxitec begins construction of major Brazil facility  

Milton Park start-up, Oxitec, has broken ground on the world’s largest Wolbachia Mosquito production facility in Brazil. The new state-of-the-art production facility will make Wolbachia Replacement Technology (WRT) following the World Health Organisation’s call for expanded access to the technology.  

When introduced into mosquitoes, Wolbachia is a bacteria that can help reduce their ability to transmit diseases like chikungunya, dengue and Zika. 

Designed to scale WRT production rapidly, the new facility aims to protect up to 100 million people threatened by dengue, a viral disease spread by mosquitoes, each year, marking a major step in Oxitec’s mission to protect more than one billion people from dengue by 2040.  

Grey Frandsen, Chief Executive Officer at Oxitec, commented: “This new state-of-the-art facility marks a major leap forward in making Wolbachia mosquito technology affordable and accessible to governments in Brazil and worldwide. We’re proud to help standardise and scale this life-saving solution globally.”

Pathios Therapeutics appoints Chief Medical Officer 

Milton Park-based biotech company, Pathios Therapeutics Limited has appointed Dr Sumeet Ambarkhane as its Chief Medical Officer.  

With more than twenty years of experience across academia and the biopharmaceutical industry in clinical care and early through late stage drug development, Dr. Ambarkhane will support the advancement of the company’s novel therapeutic programs, including PTT-4256, a highly potent oral treatment which is currently being evaluated in a first-in-human clinical trial in advanced solid cancers. 

Paul Higham, Chief Executive Officer at Pathios, commented: “We look forward to benefiting from Sumeet’s extensive drug development expertise as we maintain our momentum with the ongoing clinical trial of PTT-4256 in solid tumours. 

“We welcome Sumeet to Pathios and look forward to an exciting and productive 2025 with a management team that possesses an impressive breadth of skill and experience.”

Physiomics awarded new contract 

Milton Park-based Physiomics, a leading mathematical modelling, data science and biostatistics company supporting the development of new therapeutics and personalised medicine solutions, has been awarded a contract with a new UK-based biotech company developing bifunctional antibody therapies targeting hard-to-treat cancers.  

The project will involve modelling and simulating techniques to support the development of a first-in-class bifunctional antibody therapy designed to target multiple solid tumour indications.  

Dr Peter Sargent, Chief Executive Officer of Physiomics, commented: “We are delighted to be working with this new client and supporting their team with the development of their exciting new therapy. This new contract also reflects the progress Physiomics is making in expanding its client base and supporting the development of wider array of new oncology therapies through its services”. 

TreQ awarded £1.65 million grant to develop quantum testbed

Following the government’s recent announcement to invest £121 million in the quantum industry, Milton Park occupier TreQ and its partners have been awarded £1.65 million from Innovate UK to develop an Open Architecture Quantum (OAQ) Testbed aimed at accelerating the commercialisation of quantum computing technologies. 

Led by TreQ, the project team will bring together expertise and products from multiple industry leaders to create a modular and extensible system at its Milton Park facility, designed to integrate and evaluate both quantum software and hardware components, including processors. 

Dr Joseph Rahamim, Director of Systems Engineering at TreQ, commented: “The OAQ Testbed pushes the bounds of quantum computing systems. By integrating software and hardware built by several companies, we expand the focus beyond processors to the systems engineering required to develop the supply chain, engage more innovators and accelerate development.” 
 
Click here to learn more about TreQ in our Company Spotlight video. 

Milton Park

Discover other companies based at Milton Park.

Who’s here