Anti Cancer Drug Company Wins Pitching Competition

Each company was given five minutes to pitch its innovation before a jury comprising leading investors and representatives from Innovate UK, IDBS and Johnson & Johnson, followed by a rigorous question and answer session. Held during the Venture Road UK program, which attracted around 150 participants from more than 80 companies and investment organizations, the competition marked the first pitch contest organized within the Venture Road format. London based Avacta was named the winner, while Swedish company Anyo Labs secured second place.

Hello Christina Coughlin, Avacta, first of all, congratulations! You joined in for part of the Venture Road program, put together and documented by Ventures Accelerated and Phosworks. How did you first hear about this initiative and why did you decide to join?

– The Avacta story was identified by Venture Works in the planning process as a Precision Medicine company in the UK and we joined in the soft launch to hear about the program.  Given the synergies we saw, we decided to participate in the program and is has been most fruitful  The Pitch Competition led to a number of great new contacts as well as some good feedback on our story for Avacta. We were delighted to have won and are looking forward to the opportunities for the Company going forward.  Our upcoming datasets in both of our clinical stage programs will be important for the platform going forward and we look forward to the future discussions among our new colleagues from the Venture Road. 

Venture Road is all about connecting brilliant minds who share a passion to make a difference for global health. Where do you see Avacta in this? 

– We are pioneering a class of targeted therapies that we call pre|CISION. These medicines target highly potent anticancer drugs directly to the tumor, while sparing the toxic effects in normal tissues – we are seeking to provide hope to cancer patients without compromising their overall health during their treatment.  We connected with a number of like-minded companies on the road and enjoyed hearing about so many in the UK and Nordic ecosystem.  It was a fantastic experience for us. 

You yourself are based in Philadelphia but work for a London based company, moving between Anglo – American ecosystems. What values are there to harness from bridging two different life science clusters?

– Given our location in London and as well our virtual model in the States, we have found hiring the best talent to be easy, our scientists are top rate, our London biotech location in the Imperial College start up space (Scale Space) makes commuting easy and our US team travel to London and meet in person for our Team Days.  It has been my favorite company because of the people.  We have a passionate and brilliant group of people at Avacta and loved meeting so many on the Venture Road who were so like-minded. 

Will you consider the Anglo-Nordic opportunities for co-creation in your field as well, going forward?

– Absolutely, through the many connections we made, we have a number of new opportunities that opened up for collaboration across many aspects of our business from finance all the way to tissue diagnostics.  We were fortunate to be selected as part of this collaborative ecosystem and are grateful for the opportunity