Oxford spin-out Zyoxel raises £1M from China

Funding

Zyoxel Ltd, an Oxford University spin-out specialising in microbioreactor technology for use in drug discovery and stem cell applications, has raised £1 million from Hong Kong multinational CN Innovations Holdings.

This is first time a Chinese investor has provided funding for an Oxford University spin-out. One of the scientific founders of the company, Zhanfeng Cui from Oxford’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering, was educated in China and is the first Chinese person to be appointed to a chair at Oxford.

“This is a great example of bringing world-class research to rapidly expanding markets in Asia. China is stepping up as a leading innovator in the pharmaceutical and stem cell field, including therapeutic stem cells,” said Winston Chan, Chief Technical Officer of CN innovations Holdings Limited.

“CN Innovations is a science-based technology and precision engineering company, and Zyoxel will be the basis of our bio-medical business, which will be a key growth area within our group in the future,” said Chan.

Tim Hart, CEO of Zyoxel, says the company’s microbioreactors can reduce the average cost of drug development by at least 10 per cent. “Pharmaceutical, chemical and cosmetic companies need better and more reliable information when testing drugs and compounds. Using microbioreactors for 3D tissue culture to test chemicals on a range of lab-cultured human tissues will enable researchers to assess new drug candidates more intelligently,” said Hart.

The inability to detect toxicity at an early stage of drug development is estimated to cost the pharmaceutical industry around $8 billion per year. Hart believes the Zyoxel technology also has the potential to reduce the amount of animal testing worldwide by around 10 per cent per year.

Zyoxel is developing partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and anticipates that the first product sales will take place within a year.

The company’s microbioreactor technology was invented by Cui, Jill Urban from the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, and colleagues. It enables cells to grow as three-dimensional tissues instead of conventional single layers.

Cui said, “Cells function very differently when grown as tissues in conditions closer to those of cells in the body. The microbioreactors are also individually perfused to mimic how cells in the body are constantly supplied with fresh nutrients and waste products removed via the blood.”

He added, “Recent research has shown our technology can be used to culture more realistic cancer tissue for testing, offering a powerful new tool for cancer drug discovery programmes.”