Drug development firm FibroFind has been acquired by Vespa Capital in a move that could accelerate its international growth.
The six-year-old Newcastle University spin-out was founded by professors Jelena Mann, Derek Mann, Fiona Oakley and Lee Borthwick and specialises in developing therapies for fibrotic diseases affecting the liver, kidney and lung, using pre-clinical testing models. FibroFind is helping to transform how new medicines are tested before reaching human trials.
The deal sees Prof Mann and Prof Oakley exit the business, which is focussed on the development of treatments that can prevent, slow down, or even reverse the condition where healthy tissue becomes damaged and is replaced with scar tissue. Patients with the thickened, stiff tissue can suffer other, sometimes life-threatening illnesses.
FibroFind's patented Precision Cut Tissue Slice platform gives drug developers a detailed view of the safety and efficacy of their treatments by keeping real human tissue samples alive in the lab. There are currently few solutions for fibrosis, which is said to be at the root of many chronic conditions and is involved in about 45% of diseases and deaths in the Western world.
The firm conducts research for pharmaceutical companies, provides advanced lab models that mimic organ-specific fibrosis and helps drug developers make earlier and more informed decisions. Under Vespa Capital's ownership, FibroFind - which won Bionow Start-up of the Year in 2022 - plans to expand its technology to include more tissue types and broaden its services.
Prof Jelena Mann, CEO of FibroFind and professor of epigenetics at Newcastle University, said: “Partnering with Vespa Capital is an exciting next step for FibroFind. We are already seeing strong global demand for our platform, and this investment allows us to scale our operations, broaden our scientific reach, and expand the impact we can have on drug development."
She added: "As regulators and the pharmaceutical industry move away from animal models, our technology offers human-relevant testing that delivers better data and faster decisions."
David Forbes, partner at said: "FibroFind is a unique and well-respected business with a strong reputation in an attractive and growing segment of the life science services sector.
"Prof Mann and Dr Borthwick have built a platform which allows customers to either progress to the clinical trial phase with confidence, based on the superior translational accuracy of the pre-clinical data, or to save customers hundreds of millions of pounds in failed clinical trials. We are excited about the opportunity to extend the reach of the company as it seeks to revolutionise drug testing and pre-clinical research."
