Nemesis Bioscience today announced the successful completion of its latest funding round, bringing total seed funds raised to more than £700,000, and the commencement of its preclinical programmes. The round was led by The Rainbow Seed Fund who co-invested alongside Finance Wales and Dr Mark McCamish. Proceeds will be used by the company to validate its suite of Bacterial Cybergenetics© technologies in vivo. These include Nemesis Symbiotics© for the reversal of antibiotic resistance; and Transmids© for their clinical and veterinary delivery, and for other industrial applications.
Nemesis believes that attempts to develop new antibiotics to kill bacteria provide only short-term solutions and are doomed as natural selection pressure will result in selection for resistance. Instead, the company believes the answer to the problem of anti-microbial resistance (AMR) is to switch off resistance mechanisms. Nemesis’ agents do not kill bacteria directly. They resurrect antibiotic susceptibility –eliminating the threat of ‘super bugs’ and ensuring current antibiotics retain efficacy over the long-term.
The Nemesis approach has also been proven to be effective in stopping horizontal resistance-gene transfer in bacteria, offering the potential, via probiotic administration, for both prevention of infection with AMR bacteria and clearing resistance genes from the microbiome.
Nemesis Cybergenetics© technologies use modified, multiplexed programmable RNA-guided endonucleases – the first of which has been proven to inactivate resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics by targeting 8 families of beta-lactamases: these include extended spectrum betalactamases (ESBL), carbapenemases, and metallo-beta-lactamases.
Rainbow’s Investment Director, Oliver Sexton said, “Nemesis has worldleading technology. Its platform has been shown to return vulnerability to antibiotics in clinical isolates. With this funding, Nemesis can take the programme closer to the clinic and revolutionise the race to beat antibiotic resistance”.
Phil Barnes who led the investment for Finance Wales said: “Nemesis is an exciting portfolio company that has benefited from both Finance Wales’ technology seed funding and follow-on investment from our main technology venture funds. Having a high calibre co-investor such as the Rainbow Seed Fund brings great sector experience and additional development capital to the company.”
Commenting on the funding, Nemesis CEO Dr Frank Massam thanked the syndicate and said he was, “looking forward to completing our early in vivo programmes, which we are confident will demonstrate the clinical potential of our technologies to contribute to the management of the global antimicrobial resistance crisis.”
About Rainbow Seed Fund
The Rainbow Seed Fund is an early-stage venture capital fund dedicated to kick-starting technology companies from great science emerging from the National Research & Innovation Campuses. The Fund is backed by nine UK publicly-funded research organisations including STFC, BBSRC, Dstl and NERC and the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
(BEIS). The Fund, whose portfolio comprises more than 40 companies, holds investments in some of the UK’s most innovative early-stage companies, underpinning the Government's Industrial Strategy. The Fund invests, validates and mentors companies. It has successfully leveraged from the private sector more than 20 times its own investment and created more than 550 high-value technology jobs.
The Rainbow Seed Fund is managed by Midven, an established venture capital firm with a successful track record of investing in small and mediumsized enterprises. For more information, please visit www.rainbowseedfund.com
About Finance Wales
Finance Wales was established by the Welsh Government in 2001 and provides commercial funding to small and medium-sized businesses throughout Wales to enable them to realise their potential for innovation and growth. The company is part of the Finance Wales Group and in 2015-16 the Group invested £63 million through 268 debt-equity investments in growing businesses.
The Finance Wales Group, one of the UK’s largest SME investors, has in excess of £1 billion of funds under management across all SME investment fund and the Help to Buy – Wales scheme. The Group has invested more than £500 million through more than 4,079 investments For more information, please contact:
Jayne Lutwyche
Tel: 029 2033 8128
E-mail: jayne.lutwyche@financewales.co.u