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fund overview
o2h Ventures Limited has launched the first fund in the UK solely focused on early stage biotech therapeutic and related AI opportunities in the UK. The geographic scope shall be UK wide but will target the growing Cambridge biotech cluster. The fund is structured to be S/EIS compliant providing income, inheritance and capital gains tax breaks for UK tax payers.
A shift in focus of the large pharmaceutical companies from developing innovation in-house to acquiring innovation externally increased demand for the best science providing earlier exit options. The fund is headquartered in the o2h SciTech Park, Cambridge, where it can provide the incubation and support as part of a community to the companies it has invested in to help them achieve a critical value inflexion point. The team at o2h have access to some of the most exciting ideas through its live grass roots working relationships fostered with entrepreneurs and scientists over many years.
For more information email us at- invest@o2h.com
Information memorandum
If you would like further details and would like to read our full Information Memorandum you can request to download it below:
S(EIS) tax relief is very attractive for UK tax payers
You invest £50k
EIS gives you £15k tax relief from HMRC
SEIS gives you £25k tax relief from HMRC
COMPANY VALUE DOUBLES
Investment now worth £100k
£50k profit
£15k income tax relief
£10k performance incentive
£55k net profit
VALUE STAYS THE SAME
Investment still worth £50k
£0 profit
£15k income tax relief
£0 performance incentive
£15k net profit
COMPANY FAILS
Investment now worth £0
£50k loss
£15k income tax relief
£15,750 loss relief *
£0 performance incentive
£19,250 capital loss
* Loss relief calculated on higher rate tax bracket Worked example is net of any fund fees
the team
Sunil Shah
Managing Partner
Sunil's Biography
Sunil Shah
Managing Partner
o2h Ventures was co-founded by Sunil and Prashant Shah in 2013. In the last 3-4 years, they have co-founded four companies with UK-based academics and entrepreneurs, provided consultancy services to ve companies, held Chairman or Director level positions in nine companies, built up a portfolio of twenty early-stage investments, and executed early stage drug discovery research projects for fteen different companies. In 2013, bucking a pattern of UK Science going to the USA for funding, Sunil and Prashant acted quickly to lead an academic spin out from the USA with promising data in brain cancer and proceeded to run, externally fund and locate that company, Opal Oncology, in the UK. It provided direct hands on experience of making the scienti c decisions and managing the operations of a therapeutics company.
Prashant Shah
Managing Partner
Prashant's Biography
Prashant Shah
Managing Partner
o2h Ventures was co-founded by Sunil and Prashant Shahin 2013. In the last 3-4 years, they have co-founded four companies with UK-based academics and entrepreneurs, provided consultancy services to ve companies, held Chairman or Director level positions in nine companies, built up a portfolio of twenty early-stage investments, and executed early stage drug discovery research projects for fteen different companies. In 2013, bucking a pattern of UK Science going to the USA for funding, Sunil and Prashant acted quickly to lead an academic spin out from the USA with promising data in brain cancer and proceeded to run, externally fund and locate that company, Opal Oncology, in the UK. It provided direct hands on experience of making the scienti c decisions and managing the operations of a therapeutics company.
Andy Morley
Principal
Andy's Biography
Andy Morley
Principal
Andy is a Medicinal Chemist with over 25 yrs working in major pharma (Sano -Aventis, AZ). He has experience across all discovery phases, having supported five candidates into the clinic. He is an author and inventor of over 55 publications and patents. He has been working full-time with o2h Ventures since 2013 to lead the scientific evaluation of the investments and also provides scientific support on key projects within the portfolio. He is the CSO of Opal Oncology and effective CSO for two o2h early-stage collaborations.
Tejas Upadhyay
Deal Flow Manager
Tejas's Biography
Tejas Upadhyay
Deal Flow Manager
A chemist with a passion for drug discovery and programme management. >17 years of experience working with various research organisation like Alembic, Evotec, o2h and Piramal. He gained his PhD from India and post-doctoral experience from Glasgow University, UK. Tejas visits many of the biotech conferences, pitching events, tech transfer offices as well as managing live working relationships with biotech companies to find discovery opportunities to evaluate.
Tim Sharman
Compliance Officer
Tim Sharman
Compliance Officer
Tim is the Compliance Officer and Money Laundering Reporting Officer for o2h Ventures.
He graduated from the University of Kent, Canterbury with an MA in the History and Philosophy of Science in 1986.
He has over 27 years experience in the financial services industry, in compliance, operational and investment management roles. In the last 15 years, Tim has specialised in the alternative investments sector.
He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investment.
Ajit Singh Guller
Digital Marketing Manager
Ajit's Biography
Ajit Singh Guller
Digital Marketing Manager
Ajit has got collective experience of over 3 years in Digital Marketing and related areas. He oversees all the digital marketing aspects of o2h group and is in the quest of increasing digital footprints of o2h in the upcoming years. Ajit has Bachelor’s degree in Commerce and manages the digital aspects of o2h Ventures in order to make it hassle free for investors to interact and invest.
Nehal Kotadiya
Fund Administrator
Nehal's Biography
Nehal Kotadiya
Fund Administrator
A dynamic MBA finance professional with 2 years of experience in the areas of Cash flow & Fund flow management, Statutory filings, Financial analysis, Payroll management, Taxation & Accounting. Nehal is an extremely responsible fund administrator and has been actively looking after protecting interest of investors at o2h Ventures by keeping a keen eye on fund performance, investment areas, ROI and other related spheres.
Catherine Beech
Independent Representative to the Investment Advisory Panel
Catherine Beech Biography
Catherine Beech
Independent Representative to the Investment Advisory Panel
Catherine has over 25 years
of experience in biotech,
pharmaceutical and as a venture
investor. She is currently the CEO
of Exonate for which she was one
of the founders leading the spin-
out from Nottingham University.
Catherine has a degree in medicine
from Birmingham University and in 2008 was awarded the OBE for services to technology and innovation.
Dr Chris Torrance
Independent Representative of the Investment Advisory Panel
Dr Chris Torrance Biography
Dr Chris Torrance
Independent Representative of the Investment Advisory Panel
Chris is a cancer researcher and entrepreneur. In 2007 he founded Horizon Discovery to translate advances in human genome editing into a range of research tools and services to accelerate the discovery of new and improved ‘Personalized Medicines’, including the identi cation of novel drug targets for pharmaceutical development. By 2014 Chris and his colleagues had built Horizon into the fastest growing Biotech company in the UK. In the same year, the company listed on the London Stock Exchange with over 100 commercial and scienti c staff and signi cant deal- ow with the pharmaceutical Industry, for which Horizon received the Queens Award for International Trade in 2012. Chris completed his post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Professor Bert Vogelstein at the Johns Hopkins University (U.S.A).
Cengiz Tarhan
Independent Representative of the Investment Advisory Panel
Cengiz Tarhan Biography
Cengiz Tarhan
Independent Representative of the Investment Advisory Panel
Cengiz set up FreeMedic PLC in
1993 which he grew over 25 years
and is now known as UCL Business
PLC, one of the most proli c and
successful technology groups in the
UK serving UCL and its associated
partner hospitals. Over those years
Cengiz was directly involved in
many licenses and spinouts including PolyMASC Pharmaceuticals PLC, one of the rst university spin-outs to oat on the London AIM in 1995, Medic to Medic Ltd which was sold to Informa PLC in 2005 and Stanmore Implants Worldwide Limited which was acquired by Abingworth
and MDY Healthcare in February 2008. More recently UCLB has been at the vanguard of creating the most promising cancer and gene therapy biotechs in the UK including three.
W. Graham Richards
Independent Representative of the Investment Advisory Panel
W. Graham Richards Biography
W. Graham Richards
Independent Representative of the Investment Advisory Panel
Graham served as Chairman of
the Department of Chemistry at
Oxford University. Throughout his
career, he has been involved in the
commercialisation of technologies
where he was a director of the
University of Oxford’s technology
transfer company. He was also
involved with the Wellcome Trust in a similar capacity. He co-founded Oxford Molecular Group plc., InhibOx Ltd. and Oxford Drug Design Ltd. He was a main board director, now venture partner, of IP Group plc., the listed intellectual property commercialisation company.
Cengiz Tarhan
Cengiz set up FreeMedic PLC in
1993 which he grew over 25 years
and is now known as UCL Business
PLC, one of the most proli c and
successful technology groups in the
UK serving UCL and its associated
partner hospitals. Over those years
Cengiz was directly involved in
many licenses and spinouts including PolyMASC Pharmaceuticals PLC, one of the rst university spin-outs to oat on the London AIM in 1995, Medic to Medic Ltd which was sold to Informa PLC in 2005 and Stanmore Implants Worldwide Limited which was acquired by Abingworth
and MDY Healthcare in February 2008. More recently UCLB has been at the vanguard of creating the most promising cancer and gene therapy biotechs in the UK including three
passion for EIS investing
Large pharmaceutical companies have been closing down research centres globally for the last decade. This shift in focus of the large pharmaceutical companies has moved them from developing innovation in-house to acquiring innovation externally, forcing us prices for the best science and providing earlier exit opportunities. The team at o2h have access to the most exciting scientific ideas in the through its live working relationships fostered over many years working as a discovery services company giving it far earlier access than competitors to the most promising companies. Early stage companies often need more than just money, o2h Ventures has built a unique integrated model for early stage companies which includes the possibility of offering company’s incubation in its O2h SciTech Park, in Cambridge, UK, and/or the option to jump-start their research activity from o2h Discovery in Ahmedabad, India. The fund is structures to be (S)EIS compliant proving generous income, Inheritance and capital gains tax for UK tax payers.
our EIS investments
(made personally by the Fund Managers)
Exonate
Exonate is a biopharmaceutical company focussed on the discovery and development of small molecule drugs that modulate alternative mRNA splicing to address diseases of high unmet medical need.
Sentinel
From initial concept to the delivery of candidate drugs – we’re a drug discovery company specialising in cutting-edge cancer treatment.
Phoremost
PhoreMost® has developed a next-generation phenotypic screening platform called ‘SITESEEKER®’ to identify the best new targets for future therapy, and crucially, how to drug them. This has the potential to significantly increase the diversity of novel therapeutics for cancer and other unmet diseases, where treatment options are currently severely limited.
Talisman
Talisman Therapeutics, a spinout from the University of Cambridge, is a stem cell research and development company committed to revolutionising the discovery of treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
Oppilotech
Science-led ambitious start up focused on the development of antibacterial compounds with novel mechanisms of action against drug resistant organisms.
Acacia Pharma
Acacia Pharma is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialisation of new treatments for supportive care of patients with debilitating conditions arising as a consequence of surgery, cancer or cancer treatment.
Iota
IOTA Pharmaceuticals has been established to bring you the tools and technologies for Fragment-based Drug Discovery(FBDD) and High-content Screening(HCS).
5 Alarm Bio
5 Alarm Bio is a company dedicated for designing anti-ageing therapies.
Small Pharma
Small Pharma is forging a new path in pharmaceutical development by bridging the gap between academia and industry.
Oxford Drug Design
Oxford Drug Design (formerly InhibOx) is a biotechnology company focused on internal drug discovery. The lead antibacterial programme has identified compounds with the potential to be developed into therapies for Gram-negative bacterial infections, including against strains resistant to multiple current antibacterial drug classes.
Arecor
A UK-based leading formulation technology company delivering superior biopharmaceuticals via the innovative reformulation of proteins and peptides.
Repositive
The Repositive platform enables researchers to browse through multiple repositories for the human genomic data they need to power their research.
Privitar
Privitar facilitates broader use of data while adopting an uncompromising approach to protecting confidential information.
Heartfelt Technologies
Heartfelt Technologies exists to help patients, their families, carers and doctors, to reduce hospital re-admission rates from congestive heart failure de-compensation.
Stemnovate
Stemnovate at Cambridge, UK are developing a ‘liver on a chip’ system supported by a $1m Innovate UK award. The platform is based on cutting edge stem cell and micro engineering platform technologies at University of Edinburgh and Cambridge University.
Metrion Biosciences
Metrion Biosciences is a UK-based Contract Research Organization (CRO) focussed on delivering a range of high quality ion channel drug discovery services.
ventures news
31 Jan 2019
o2h Ventures Limited, an investment firm based in Cambridge, UK, has now launched “the o2h
Therapeutics Fund” an early stage SEIS and/or EIS fund backing biotech therapeutic and related AI
opportunities with plug-in capabilities in Cambridge, UK/India and a bridge to the USA.
The investment focus of the fund will be therapeutic drug opportunities or technologies that enable drug discovery with an emphasis on Artificial Intelligence (AI). The geographic scope shall be UK wide but will target the growing Cambridge biotech cluster which is now the global headquarters of AstraZeneca, and is home
to many biotech companies some of which have subsequently been snapped up by large pharmaceutical companies.
Large pharmaceutical companies have been closing down research centers globally for the last decade. This shift in focus of the large pharmaceutical companies has moved them from developing innovation in-house to acquiring innovation externally, forcing up the prices for the best science and providing earlier exit opportunities. The team at o2h have access to the most exciting scientific ideas through its live working relationships fostered over many years working as a discovery services company. This gives us far earlier access than competitors to the most promising companies.
Early stage companies often need more than just money, o2h Ventures has built a unique integrated model for early stage companies which includes the possibility of offering companies incubation in its o2h SciTech Park, in Cambridge, UK, and/or the option to jump-start their research activity from o2h Discovery in Ahmedabad, India.
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The Old Mill Warehouse - Incubation and co-working spaces and Hauxton House - o2h Ventures Global HQ.
The fund is structured to be S/EIS compliant providing generous income, inheritance and capital
gains tax breaks for UK tax payers.
Investors may download the investment memorandum at www.o2h.com/ventures
About o2h:
o2h seeds new ideas in science, technology and social enterprise. We work across boundaries and take a
collaborative and shared approach to innovation, and therefore we co-invest, co-create and co-execute to bring
these ideas to life. o2h is co-located in Ahmedabad, India and in Cambridge UK and has 6 verticals covering
Ventures, Co-work, Discovery Services, Therapeutics, Technology, and Community. Visit- www.o2h.com for more details.
Sunil Shah, CEO of o2h commented “We are really excited to launch the o2h ventures therapeutics fund. We see great deal flow through our hot network which is an accumulation of over 15 years of providing research services to this sector. The EIS benefits are a great way to invest in these fledgling businesses and access great British
innovation in therapeutics whilst mitigating the risk through the tax benefits. We look forward to making our first investment in early 2019.
Contact:
Sunil Shah, Partner at o2h Ventures Limited
www.o2h.com/ventures
Mail- invest@o2h.com
18 Oct 2018
“Investment will accelerate the delivery of significantly improved therapeutic treatments and quality of life for people living with diabetes”
Cambridge, UK., 10 September 2018: Arecor Ltd (“the Company”), the UK-based leader in developing superior biopharmaceuticals through the application of an innovative formulation technology platform, today announces that it has secured £6.0 million of investment from new and existing investors for the clinical development of the Company’s speciality pharma portfolio of proprietary diabetes products.
This £6.0 million equity investment into Arecor was led by leading UK institutional investors, Calculus Capital, Downing Ventures, and Albion Capital with significant participation from Arecor’s existing investors. BioScience Managers Limited, the international healthcare investment firm, advised Downing Ventures.
Arecor’s next-generation diabetes product pipeline represents exciting new progress in the field of diabetes that will enable important new treatment regimens and offer greater control of blood glucose to diabetes patients, which is key to improving outcomes and quality of life.
This pipeline includes:-
@ Proprietary formulations of analogues that are ultra-rapid acting and more closely match a healthy body’s physiological response to blood glucose, leading to better blood glucose (sugar) control – currently a significant challenge
@ Highly concentrated rapid acting optimised for the next generation of body-worn miniaturised delivery devices, including the artificial pancreas
@ Stable aqueous ready to use used in an emergency to treat severe hypoglycaemia and enabling future use in bi-hormonal artificial pancreas systems
These programmes will be progressed through development to demonstrate improved product profiles and health outcomes in human clinical trials. In addition to these clinical programmes, the investment will allow Arecor to progress its pre-clinical pipeline of diabetes combination products, as well as a range of additional superior biotherapeutics addressing critical unmet needs in key disease areas.
The management of diabetes is one of the major global health challenges. Indeed, the International Diabetes Federation (“IDF”) estimates that there are nearly half a billion (425 million) people currently living with diabetes around the world* and the IDF further estimates that if the global direct and indirect healthcare costs from diabetes are included, the economic impact of diabetes exceeds $1trillion**.
* International Diabetes Federation. IDF Diabetes Atlas, 8th edition. International Diabetes Federation, 2017. Available at: http://www.diabetesatlas.org/
** Bommer C., Heesemann E., Sagalova V., et al. The global economic burden of diabetes in adults aged 20-79 years: a cost-of-illness study. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol 2017; 5: 423-30.
The improved products, therapeutic pathways and personalised control that Arecor’s products can enable, will make a significant contribution to addressing this challenge. Arecor will be taking its product portfolio into clinical development itself, however, the Company will ultimately look to partner with specialist diabetes companies for late stage clinical studies and global market access.
The Company, which was originally based on unique protein chemistry technology and insights spun out from Unilever, has refined and developed these into the ArestatTM formulation technology platform. This platform has been used extensively to improve the solution properties of numerous protein, anti-body, vaccine and peptide formulations both in collaboration with pharmaceutical partners, as well as for Arecor’s own pipeline. Arecor has established a proven track record in applying this technology platform to deliver superior biopharmaceutical product profiles across a broad range of therapeutic areas.
Dr Sarah Howell, Chief Executive Officer at Arecor, commented: “We are delighted to have secured the investment that we need to progress our lead diabetes programmes through the key stages of clinical development. With diabetes reaching epidemic proportions worldwide and with close to half a billion people living with the condition today, the opportunity of advancing our diabetes products into human clinical trials and their potential to significantly improve the treatment of this debilitating disease, represents a very exciting and ground-breaking proposition”.
Alexander Crawford, Investment Director, Calculus Capital, added: “Arecor is applying its unique and highly regarded reformulation technology which will help transform the growing diabetes market. As lead investor, we believe this is an exciting new phase from Arecor in the development of their technology and strong growth potential.”
Dr Christoph Ruedig, Partner, Albion Capital, said: “We have followed Arecor for some time and are excited by the societal value of its fast onset, short duration action. Its technology is highly differentiated and the Company is leading the sector in the area of stabilising liquid formulations for injectable drugs. We look forward to working with the strong leadership team to bring this extraordinary proposition to fruition and in doing so, aid many diabetic patients across the UK and beyond.”
Richard Lewis, Investment Director, Downing Ventures, concluded: “As an investment opportunity, Arecor combines a solid and high margin technology business alongside a proprietary product offering that fulfils major unmet medical need. As a result, we believe that the diabetes pipeline should successfully attract quality international commercial partners. ”
Arecor is one of o2h Ventures’ investment.
25 May 2018
Stemnovate which is advancing 'organ on chip' technology has closed its seed investment round with a team of eight angels led by team of o2h ventures, whose co-founder Sunil Shah is joining the board as chairman.Stemnovate specialises in stem cell research, cellular differentiation and microengineering. Its 'liver on a chip' technology has exciting potential for pre-clinical hepatotoxicity testing, replicating the microarchitecture and functions of the human liver and taking account of variation in patient's individual genetic backgrounds.
Mr Shah, who is an MBA from Cambridge University is a serial entrepreneur who co-founded two companies in information technology and life sciences sector O2h ventures involves discovery services and collaboration, seeding drug discovery, academic in-licensing and bio-technology incubation.He said "current models for screening new drugs for liver toxicity are not predictive,there is an urgent need for the reliable screening technology before millions are invested into a clinical trial only to fail due to liver toxicity".
For more information- Stemnovate Secure....