Mercia Pharma, Inc.

LONDON & BUDAPEST, Hungary--( BUSINESS WIRE )--Turbine, the biological simulation company using AI to build predictive computational models of human cells and tissue, today announced several new appointments to its Board of Directors. Turbine's Simulated Cell™ platform models the foundational protein signaling logic that decides cell fate, allowing global biopharmaceutical customers such as AstraZeneca, Bayer, and Ono Pharmaceutical to more effectively target disease and position therapeutic assets. The Board additions support Turbine as it accelerates business development activities based on strong results generated by the Simulated Cell platform throughout 2023 and 2024. The updates to the company’s Board are as follows: Anna Marie Wagner , M.B.A.: Anna Marie joins Turbine’s board as an Independent Director. She most recently served as the Senior Vice President, Head of AI and Head of Corporate Development at Ginkgo Bioworks. In these roles, Anna Marie was responsible for artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, execution, and partnerships as well as all external innovation (whether via partnership or M&A). She also led Ginkgo’s public offering in 2021, raising $1.6 billion in the largest-ever go-public raise in biotech, and served as Ginkgo’s Chief Financial Officer during the pandemic. Previously, Anna Marie spent nearly a decade as an investor at Bain Capital Private Equity. She holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard College. Greg Hersch , Ph.D. : Dr. Hersch is the Senior Vice President, Enterprise Strategy and Venture at MSD (Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ USA). He has joined the board as an Observer on behalf of the MSD Global Health Innovation Fund, which co-led Turbine’s Series A financing . Alex Gwyther : Alex is an Investor at Mercia Ventures, which co-led Turbine’s Series A financing. He joins the board as an Investor Director. Alex joined Mercia in 2021 following four years at IBM’s consulting business, where he led business development efforts for the company’s AI, analytics, and blockchain solutions, among other technologies. He holds an M.S. in Science Communication from the Imperial College London and a B.A. in Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford. Alex replaces Daniela Tsoneva, Mercia’s prior representative on the Turbine Board. “With the recent advances in data science, including the application of generative AI, biopharma companies are finding themselves bottlenecked not by the number of new ideas they can come up with, but by the ability to select and validate the right hypotheses with the greatest potential to help patients,” said Szabolcs Nagy, Turbine’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “Trained to reflect the real world based on our map of protein interactions, molecular profiles, and response data, Simulated Cells are rapidly becoming the go-to platform for biopharma companies to test billions of ideas and find the right experiments to run.” Nagy continued: “Since mid-2023, Turbine has completed successful financings , announced important pharma and channel partner collaborations, and demonstrated the Simulated Cell platform’s ability to uncover hidden biological insights that expanded drug pipelines and could boost their chance of success in the clinic. Our new Board members bring deep biopharma business experience, and we’re excited to make even more progress with them as we bring the benefits of Turbine’s technology to every corner of the industry.” About Turbine Countless resources and time are expended globally to research and advance novel therapies that end in clinical failure and no patient benefit. Imagine a world where it is possible to predict any potential drug’s effect on translatable biological models yet unavailable for lab-based testing – while accurately representing patient biology. Turbine is revolutionizing the status quo by working to ensure that we always run the right wet lab experiments. With machine learning that understands the logic by which human cells make decisions, Turbine has built the world’s leading predictive simulation of patient biology. The Simulated Cell™ platform models the foundational protein signaling logic that decides cell fate and facilitates in silico experiments at scales that are impossible in the physical world. Billions of simulated experiments can be run in the time it takes to complete even a single test in a wet lab to empower the biopharma industry by identifying and confirming disease driving mechanisms. Turbine’s platform is already used to guide the pipelines of leading pharma companies such as AstraZeneca, Ono Pharmaceutical, Cancer Research Horizons, and Bayer. In addition, Turbine has received funding from industry leaders such as MSD (Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ USA) Global Health Innovation Fund, MassMutual Ventures, Accel and Delin Ventures among others. For more information, visit www.turbine.ai or follow Turbine on LinkedIn .

Invizius estimates that about 20% of dialysis patients may have "angry blood," where an overzealous inflammatory response can lead to serious complications. Invizius has completed a first-in-human study of its approach to taming the immune system’s overreaction to dialysis—with the goal of addressing the complications that can come with “angry blood.” While you would normally want a zealous white blood cell to attack any newcomers to the body, to protect it against infections and the like, heightened inflammation can take its toll during hemodialysis.  As the living blood makes its way through the machine, every surface is a surface that triggers the foreign-body response: From the cells' point of view, none of it should be there. Enter Invizius’ H-Guard priming solution, which is run through the machine before each procedure. It coats the insides with a layer of proteins that effectively camouflage the dialysis hardware from the immune system—stealing a trick from certain bacteria that are capable of evading white blood cells, without triggering the cascading inflammatory reactions known as the complement system. Late last month, the Scotland-based company—and former Fierce 15 winner—announced that its first eight patients had been successfully treated in a phase 1 study. Analyses before and after dialysis showed that the blood filtration process worked as expected. Its next step will be to perform a phase 2b trial of hospitalized patients with acute kidney injuries, looking to see if H-Guard can lower the amount of time spent in the ICU or reduce renal damage from the immune system’s reactions to dialysis. “This is an important milestone for H-Guard and Invizius, allowing us to progress into a larger efficacy study showing the clinical benefits of controlling complement activation in [continuous renal replacement therapy] and a number of extracorporeal systems,” CEO Magnus Nicolson said in a statement. The priming solution is also being studied preclinically for use during heart bypass procedures and in other life support systems. A previous biomarker analysis study by the company screened blood samples from over 350 participants that undergo routine hemodialysis and found that patients can be categorized by their immune reactions to the procedure.  While chronic, low-grade inflammation is common among dialysis patients, those with the strongest responses can carry higher risks of developing serious complications—such as blood clots, organ damage or a wide range of other conditions—and may benefit the most from the addition of a product like H-Guard.  Dubbed “angry blood,” Invizius estimates that about one-in-five dialysis patients may be susceptible to the overreactions, out of the more than 3 million people worldwide who undergo the procedure multiple times per week. According to Invizius, the results of the biomarker study won “best abstract” last month at the annual meeting of the European Renal Association in Stockholm, as presented by Duha Ilyas, a clinical research fellow at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, part of the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and the site of the first-in-human trial. “This is the largest kinetic analysis of complement activation in routine haemodialysis (HD) ever undertaken in [the U.K.],” said study leader Sandip Mitra, a professor of renal medicine at the Manchester NHS trust. “Our results indicate patient-specific complement activation associated with inflammatory response during routine haemodialysis. Reduction in complement activation in HD may yield significant clinical outcome benefits.” The company previously raised £5.3 million in a 2021 series A round, joined by Mercia, Downing Ventures, Old College Capital, Scottish Enterprise, Solvay Ventures and Calculus Capital.

Company’s synthetic affinity reagents are antibody alternatives designed to advance the speed, safety, and efficiency of manufacturing at scale, making advanced therapies more accessible to patients. Investment led by Mercia Ventures, with Calculus Capital and Angel investors also participating. BEDFORDSHIRE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- MIP Discovery, an innovative developer of non-biological affinity reagents designed to accelerate the development and production of cell and gene therapies, today announced it has closed a £7 million GBP (~$9 million USD) Series A financing round, led by Mercia Ventures. Existing investor Calculus Capital also participated in the round, along with Angel investors. The investment marks a pivotal change for MIP Discovery as the Company refocuses its mission on improving the downstream processing of cell and gene therapies, to accelerate widespread adoption of these potentially life-changing medicines. The funding will be used to drive further commercialization of MIP Discovery’s novel synthetic affinity reagents within the cell and gene therapy space, with the Company working alongside leading industry players to develop novel tools aligned with critical applications. The funds will also support recruitment efforts to expand in-house cell and gene therapy expertise. MIP Discovery’s non-biological affinity reagents support a new approach to viral vector characterization, viral vector purification, and safety and QC processes, such as the detection and removal of impurities. Viral vectors are a critical component for many cell and gene therapies, and yet many of the current technologies used to characterize, develop, and manufacture them do not meet the required standards for scale, performance, or economics. Taking the industry beyond the limitations of biological reagents, MIP Discovery’s synthetic antibody alternatives offer a fresh approach to downstream processing for cell and gene therapy developers. MIP Discovery considers both the target and end-use application during the design phase of its reagents, offering an advanced alternative to biologicals with greater possibilities for characterization and downstream processing. Stephane Argivier, CEO, MIP Discovery, said: “Securing funding for a novel reagents company in today’s investment landscape demonstrates clear confidence in MIP Discovery’s technology and renewed commercial strategy. Our proprietary modeling approach to developing synthetic antibody alternatives has already been successful for diagnostic applications, and we have already seen very encouraging traction for our expertise in the cell and gene therapy space.” Mike Evans, Chair of MIP Discovery, said: “MIP Discovery’s synthetic affinity reagents offer an innovative alternative to antibodies, and are better suited for downstream processing of advanced therapies. Backed by our proven technology and the confidence of our investors, we hope to help increase the affordability of cell and gene therapies, enabling the efficient delivery of these potentially life-saving treatments on a global scale.” Dr Mark Payton, CEO of Mercia, said: “The broader cell and gene therapy market is a rapidly growing multi-billion-dollar market and its next stage of evolution is to focus down on technologies that reduce the cost of production and purification to ensure this therapeutic benefit is available for the many. Using MIPs’ sophisticated and highly scalable synthetic chemistry approach means they are well positioned to benefit from this tremendous high growth opportunity.” Liz Klein, Investment Director at Calculus, added: “MIP Discovery’s synthetic affinity reagents hold huge potential to overcome bottlenecks in cell and gene therapy development and production. We are delighted to be further backing MIP as they are making significant technical progress.” To learn more about how MIP Discovery is enabling cell and gene therapy developers, please visit . View source version on businesswire.com: Contacts Esmé Walters, Zyme Communications E: esme.walters@zymecommunications.com Source: MIP Discovery View this news release online at: