- Funding to enable further investigate an oral antidepressant based on a metabolite of ketamine and a 5HT2A agonist for treatment resistant depression.
- Identify collaborative opportunities with Pharma or larger biotech with assets in which they can deploy the specialist patent expertise developed.
Cambridge, UK, 17th July 2019: The o2h therapeutics and AI Fund (“The Fund”), an early stage S/EIS fund investing in biotechnology therapeutics and related AI opportunities, is pleased to announce an investment in Small Pharma. The leadership team have experience in both drug development process and IP, and have looked at difficult to patent treatments for depression.
The Investment will enable Small Pharma to complete further studies for their lead programme which is a metabolite of Ketamine as an oral anti-depressant and to further develop the 5HT2A agonist for the treatment of depression.
Sunil Shah, CEO, o2h ventures, said: “Peter Rands and his team have a wealth of experience in both Patent Law and Drug Development and can provide great value to projects to high value drugs but are difficult to patent.”
Peter Rands, Managing Director, Small Pharma, added: “We are delighted that o2h ventures have the confidence in us to participate in this financing. Beyond their investment, they bring deep sector experience and an unrivalled network, all of which are critical to advancing our antidepressant candidates into the clinic.”
Editor’s Note:
About o2h ventures:
o2h ventures Limited has launched the o2h therapeutics and AI fund which is the first S/EIS fund in the UK solely focused on early stage biotech therapeutics and related AI opportunities. The geographic scope shall be UK wide including Oxford and London but will target the growing Cambridge biotech cluster. The Fund is structured to be S/EIS compliant providing tax breaks for UK taxpayers.
The biotech sector is one of the leading sectors in the UK economy. The large pharma companies now rely on the small innovative biotech’s for new ideas in disease areas such as cancer, genomics, anti-ageing and neurosciences amongst others which has led to higher potential exit valuations. The Fund will widen the community of investors that will help expand early stage research in the UK.
The o2h ventures team are leaders in the biotech community and have been actively involved as investors, holding various board/industry positions as well as being engaged in grassroots scientific activity for over 20 years. o2h ventures operate from their proprietary 2.7 acre Mill SciTech Park where they are developing a unique model for incubating small life science companies.
For more information, please visit- https://o2hventures.com/
Media Contact:
Ajit Singh
Public Relations
ajit@o2h.com
About Small Pharma:
Many valuable drug development opportunities, either from academia or from discovery-focused biotech companies, lose their way in development and never reach the patients. Small Pharma is dedicated to identifying these opportunities and ensuring that the value in the underlying pharmaceutical assets is preserved.
The leadership have both experience of drug development and are and patent lawyers and have looked at difficult to patent treatments for depression.
Their lead programme is based on an active metabolite of ketamine, which they are developing as a rapid-acting antidepressant. SPL801B has a different mode of action to ketamine, has a promising safety profile and early studies indicate a lack of dissociative and addictive side effects.
For more information, please visit- http://www.smallpharma.co.uk/
Media Contact:
Peter Rands
Managing Director
peter.rands@smallpharma.co.uk
