Today we’re in the world of vaccine development… can it be an answer to the problem of declining effectiveness of antibiotics? I think you’ll be interested in what Iuvantium is working on.

But first:

• Lancashire County Council has launched an angel network to support early-stage business growth in the county. fhunded angels is part of the fhunded programme, which is developing a good reputation for supporting Lancashire startups.

• Brarista, the computer vision bra fitting startup we introduced you to back in late 2023, has raised £510,000 in a round led by GC Angels that also includes Innovate UK grant funding.

• What are the challenges facing the current crop of UK fintech startups, and how can they be tackled? Founders Unfiltered is a new report from Ninety Two Ventures and Sam Shaw Media. You can find it on LinkedIn here.

– Martin

Iuvantium is building a world after antibiotics

It’s been called a “silent pandemic” (or even a not-so silent pandemic), but however you think about it, the declining effectiveness of antibiotics is a terrifying thing.

Antimicrobial resistance is a topic researchers around the world are taking very seriously indeed. If antibiotics stop working, humanity is a whole heap of trouble.

One line of thinking goes that the solution to this problem is vaccines designed to target the kinds of bacteria antibiotics are typically used to treat.

And that’s where Iuvantium comes in. This Oxford-based startup is exploring the potential of using novel inorganic chemistry to develop vaccines as a replacement for antibiotics.

The team’s work is based on research conducted by chief scientific officer Professor Jon Austyn at the University of Oxford into the ability for layered double hydroxides (LDH) to induce multiple types of immune response

Austyn explains that the team developed 20 compounds with LDH and looked at the immunological responses they can induce.

“One of the interesting things we found is that some of them can induce a type of immunity that we don't think other types of adjuvant can do. And this is the type of immunity that's particularly important for antimicrobial resistance,” Austyn says.

Other compounds the team has developed could be useful in treating viral infections or even cancers, Austyn adds.

The story so far

Iuvantium’s story began around five years ago when Austyn met Björn Schimmöller, who was an R&D director for a company in the chemicals industry. Austyn’s research intrigued him from a business point of view when he came across it.

“From a materials perspective, was highly fascinating to me. It solved one of the biggest challenges that you have in the chemicals and materials industry, which is scale,” Schimmöller explains.

“If you want to develop a novel material and bring it to commercialisation, you have to have a large-scale and beneficial cost structure for your manufacturing. And here was a nanomaterial technology platform that needed a very little amount to be manufactured to have an immense impact.”

The pair began to collaborate as part of a project for Schimmöller’s employer. After the company dropped the research as part of a wider reorganisation, Schimmöller and Austyn decided to start their own company at the end of 2022.

Iuvantium has now developed prototypes and has established research partnerships with universities and hospitals. Partnerships with pharma and biotech companies is next on the to-do list. In terms of commercialisation, the next step is animal studies to begin the road to deployment in humans.

Schimmöller sees a licensing model as the commercial future of the technology, along with Iuvantium selling its own products.

“With commercial partners, we believe we have a toolbox that would enable them to make their therapies more effective, safer, and more more affordable. We want to partner with companies that have certain problems that we think we can solve,” Schimmöller says.

“In terms of revenue generation, we’d be licensing access to the technology, with milestone payments, and eventually we’d get royalties on commercial products, and at the same time, we are developing our own pipeline of assets

“We are a platform company first and an asset company second. And we really believe that there are lots of opportunities with the platform to help other companies to bring new therapies, vaccines, and drugs to the patient, and in the end, that's really what matters.”

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