Yorkshire lung cancer research boosted by funding

A £570,000 investment has been made in a University of York spin-out company to help develop its research to detect lung cancer and provide a targeted route for treatment for thousands of sufferers. 

Much of the investment comes from existing investors White Rose Technology Seedcorn Fund and Yorkshire Cancer Research (YCR).  This will enable the Cizzle team, led by Dr Dawn Coverley, to develop its research based on the gene Ciz1 which appears to influence DNA replication and cell growth.

In the UK there are 33,000 deaths from lung cancer each year and it is the second most common form of cancer in the developed world.  The new funding will be used to confirm that targeting a mutated version of Ciz1 will inhibit the growth of some types of lung tumours in disease models.  Further studies will start to evaluate the usefulness of Ciz1 as a marker for diagnosing patients with the same type of lung cancer. The ultimate aim would be to identify patients with disease at an early stage and to treat them with more effective drugs that have fewer side effects.

Says Rod Adams, chairman of Cizzle Biotechnology, “The funding will help us make significant progress with the research to develop a diagnostic test and therapy to combat lung cancer.  This will see us through the next two years of development and we hope will allow us to expand the team to around six employees, including the appointment of a business development manager to help explore opportunities with large pharmaceutical companies.”

David Milroy of Aberdeen Asset Managers who manage the White Rose Technology Seedcorn Fund says, “We are delighted with Cizzle’s progress to date and believe the company has robust plans for validating its therapeutic strategy. The recently initiated development programme will provide key data for partnering discussions and will bring the company a step closer to providing an alternative for what is a poorly diagnosed and treated form of cancer.”

For further press information, please contact:

Monica Green or Caroline Jefferson
The Partners Group
105 The Mount
York
YO24 1GY

Tel:    01904 610077
Fax:    01904 641646
Email: monica@partners-group.co.uk

Notes to Editors:

About White Rose Technology Seedcorn Fund

The White Rose Technology Seedcorn Fund is an early stage seedcorn fund, which invests in exciting new technology emerging from the universities of York, Leeds and Sheffield.

The £9 million Fund provides venture capital funding of up to £500,000 (and above for exceptional opportunities) to enable the transition from promising research work to commercial reality.

Its portfolio of investee companies represents the commercialisation of high quality science and technology combined with professional management teams to produce investor-ready and partner-ready opportunities.  The Fund is supported by Yorkshire Forward and the Universities of York, Leeds and Sheffield, and managed by Aberdeen Asset Managers.

About YCR

Yorkshire Cancer Research (YCR) was founded in 1925 to fund research into the cause and cure of a variety of cancers.

YCR is the UK’s largest regional medical research charity, which funds research every year in the region’s five centres of research excellence at the Universities of Bradford, Hull, Leeds, Sheffield and York… and their associated teaching hospitals.

8 July 2008