A Newcastle life sciences company fell into administration owing £1.89m to unsecured creditors, documents show.
AMLo Biosciences Ltd (AMLo) was forced to call in administrators in June after a three-month battle to find fresh investment came to an end without fruition. The company had been launched as a Newcastle University spin-out in 2017, specialising in a pioneering early-stage skin cancer test.
Its diagnostic test allowed clinicians to ascertain whether early-stage melanomas are at low-risk of progression, and it was hoped the research would save thousands of lives every year, while also reassuring others that their skin cancer would not progress. However, new documents filed by joint administrators Christopher Petts and James Hichens at Grant Thornton reveal the chain events that led to the firm’s demise, starting with a failed investment round when a new investor pulled out.
The documents say: “The directors of the company attribute the insolvency of the company to failure to secure investment to continue to support the company’s activities. An investment round at the end of April 2025 was unsuccessful, after a new lead investor pulled out. The existing investors attempted to pull together bridging funding in May 2025 which was also unsuccessful.
“Advice was provided to the company under a letter of engagement dated May 12 2025. Grant Thornton was engaged to run an AMA process of the business with a view to effecting a transaction via a pre-packaged administration. During this process it became clear that none of the interested parties were able to transact in the timeline available to the company. As a result, the directors placed the company into administration.”
There were 12 employees when the company entered administration, and all were made redundant. Documents show they are owed £48,345. Administrators say they are working towards making a distribution to one or more of the secured or preferential creditors – the staff and investors Esperante BV and Northstar Ventures – who are owed £1.66m.
Other creditors include HMRC which is owed an estimated £59,613, and Newcastle city council which is owed £15,573. The administrators say that they are seeking a buyer for the firm’s IP and the validation data which underpins its diagnostic tests, with the help of the company’s directors.
They added: “Ultimately, no sale was able to be effected for the company, however the joint administrators intend to continue the sale process for the IP during the period of administration with the support of SIA Group. In order to get the IP into a readily sellable format, the Joint Administrators have been working with the directors and the Company’s incumbent IT provider to get the relevant files appropriately extracted from the company’s servers.
“Based on current knowledge, the joint administrators anticipate there will be insufficient realisations to enable payment of a dividend to unsecured creditors.”
