Alacrita provides expertise-based consulting services to the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. Unlike many consulting firms, all of Alacrita’s consultants are considered experts in their particular field after spending a significant portion of their careers in industry.

Alacrita conducts two types of consulting. The first is embedding a consultant within a client’s management team to fill a specific gap in expertise. The client tends to be a biotech company operating a virtual or semi-virtual model and the area of expertise may be preclinical development, clinical development, manufacturing or regulatory affairs.

The second is assembling multi-disciplinary teams to execute specific consulting projects. Such projects span a range of activities but are generally centred around either a strategic or analytical theme. Real life examples range from advising a government on implementing a streamlined biotech regulatory framework through to crafting drug development plans to underpin a financing event.

Alacrita’s continued engagement with hands-on drug development allows us to deliver project-based consulting that is rooted in the real world. Without coal-face experience, such exercises become theoretical and struggle to be translated into industrial reality.

Alpha Biologics provides process development and contract manufacturing services. This can be for mammalian cell products, vaccines or secreted proteins such as monoclonal antibodies. Based in Cambridge, UK, our team of experts manage all process development and scale-up activities, using laboratories in either Cambridge or Penang, Malaysia. Our services include cell line generation, stability and optimisation studies, cell banking, upstream & downstream process development and scale-up services. Production takes place at our purpose-designed, FDA / EMEA cGMP compliant manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia. The flexible internal lay-out and bioreactors ranging from 10 to 500 litres enable our experts to carry out final process development (engineering) runs and then either cGMP or non-cGMP manufacture. Our products are used for R&D purposes, to prepare pre-clinical or clinical trial material, or for final market use. Project examples include phage production and purification, mammalian cell line growth studies, the production of antibodies and Fab fragments, the development of human fibroblast growth parameters, mammalian cell supernatant production, cell membrane preparation from recombinant cell lines, serum-free hybridoma productivity evaluations, and many others.

Biotec Services International Limited (Biotec) is a leading UK based pharmaceutical services company specialising in the import, Qualified Person certification, labelling, assembly, storage and world-wide distribution of clinical trial supplies for Phase I to IV trials, including commercial supplies from controlled ambient conditions to 2-8°C, -20°C and -80°C. Biotec is an audited and approved supplier to a range of companies from virtuals to blue chip International pharmaceutical and healthcare companies. The company will work to develop innovative solutions to ensure the smooth transfer of drugs from development stage to trial site. Quality is very important to the team who are frequently commended on their high standards and continual investment in people, processes and equipment and facilities. The company works to both US and European Quality Standards and has regular discussions on trends and new ideas with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Procedures are developed and managed to the highest possible standards and conform to cGMP and other regulatory standards.
In recognition of its success with overseas clients, in 2009 Biotec was awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise in the International Trade category.

CDSS provides flexible, competitive, high quality clinical trial management, research nurse and site management organisation services throughout the UK and Europe to international pharmaceutical, medical device and biotechnology industries. We are a clinical research organisation (CRO) working in Phase I to IV clinical trials with a wealth of experience in numerous therapeutic areas, especially oncology, cardiovascular, pain and dermatology.

Having worked with clients ranging from small start-up biotechnology companies to large multinational pharmaceutical companies & the NHS, CDSS recognises the individual requirements of our clients and can provide a service tailored to your individual needs.

Our services include Contract Research Nursing (we are the UK’s leading independent research nurse provider), Project Management, Monitoring and Clinical Trial Administration.

Whether you want Research Nurses, Study Site Coordinators or Clinical Research Associates (CRAs), we have the skills and staff to meet your requirements on a full or part time basis.

Cellzome is a privately-owned drug discovery and development company identifying a new generation of kinase-targeted drugs to treat inflammatory diseases. Its pipeline of small-molecule therapeutics is driven by Kinobeads™, a proprietary technology for the screening and profiling of kinase inhibitors in physiologically-relevant cells and tissues. The most advanced program, targeting PI3Kγ, is anticipated to enter the clinic in 2010, and several other programs are in early preclinical testing.

Cellzome is expanding its distinctive technology, in a novel form called Episphere™, to the discovery and development of novel drug candidates for epigenetic targets in their protein complexes.

Cellzome has significant collaborations with GSK and Johnson & Johnson and employs about 90 people at its two laboratories in Cambridge, UK and Heidelberg, Germany.

The Centre for Low Carbon Futures (CLCF) is is a partnership between the Yorkshire Universities and the Regional Development Agency, Yorkshire Forward. Led by the Universities of Hull, Leeds, Sheffield and York, CLCF operates as a ‘virtual centre’ unifying all low carbon research in Yorkshire’s universities – from social policy to science and technology – to create a research, demonstration and training environment of international quality to respond to the most challenging energy and environmental issues, facilitate the translation of applied research and exploit technologies that will drive a low carbon economy. Through this collaborative approach, we can offer a range of internationally leading expertise that no single University can offer.

One of our projects has a focus on developing sustainable biorenewable fuels, industrial Chemicals and materials. The goal of our research is to optimise the productivity of crop feedstock and the efficiency of feedstock processing to enable the demonstration of an efficient and integrated biorefinery. In order to achieve this we will develop a technology platform which will focus on the development, assessment and demonstration of a broad range of potential biorefinery crops. Initially focusing on hemp, research on this project will be completed in two main areas of Biomass processing and extraction and improving hemp germplasm for biorefineries.

Cyprotex Discovery Limited is a preclinical contract research organisation providing ADME & DMPK services to research scientists engaged in drug discovery and development. We provide support for a wide range of experimental and computational ADME and PK services extending from early drug discovery through to IND submission.

Cyprotex core capabilities include our unique Cloe® Screen platform which is based on state of the art robotics and a highly sophisticated customised information management system. This dramatically reduces the cost and time involved in generating data whilst ensuring excellent reproducibility of data. Our Cloe® Select experimental service provides support for later stage ADME and Pharmacokinetic studies. These services can be customised to specific customer requirements. Our Cloe® Predict service provides a range of novel predictive technologies which take advantage of our extensive expertise in PBPK and QSAR modelling. Our proprietary Cloe® PK software product integrates core ADME and physicochemical properties to predict whole body pharmacokinetics. Cloe® PK is now available on Cyprotex’s secure web portal, Cloe® Gateway.

Domainex has an internal pipeline of oncology targets which is based upon our unique technology Combinatorial Domain Hunting. These internal programmes are exclusively focussed on nucleotide triphosphate binding domains (NTP domains) which are found in several important therapeutic targets of particular relevance to oncology. The current portfolio includes a number of lysine methyl transferases and a kinase IKK epsilon. Our IKK program is in lead optimisation.

Domainex also offers services to Pharma using our unique patented technology called CDH designed to express challenging target proteins. We also offer computational and medicinal chemistry again focused upon targets which require a high degree of chemical expertise.

Eden Biodesign is a globally-integrated biopharmaceutical and vaccine contract manufacturing company offering strategic consultancy, biopharmaceutical design and cGMP manufacturing services.

We have a long history of successfully completed commercial assignments, for clients in Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, Australasia and Latin America. Our client base ranges from biotech start ups to the world’s largest and most respected multinational biopharmaceutical companies.

Eden Biodesign operates a world-class facility in Liverpool, UK that provides a full range of services for biopharmaceuticals and vaccines, including: cell line/strain development and banking, process development, cGMP manufacturing and analytical development for all significant biopharmaceutical product technologies - mammalian, microbial and viral.

Epistem is a biotechnology company commercialising its expertise in epithelial stem cells in the areas of oncology, gastrointestinal diseases and dermatology. Epistem’s Contract Research Division has a track record of providing bespoke preclinical efficacy testing services to over 130 international clients in biotechnology, pharmaceutical and personal care sectors.

Through specialist knowledge of epithelial diseases, the scientists at Epistem have developed a range of unique in vitro and in vivo assay methodologies which can be used to assess the mode of action and efficacy of new drug candidates. With expertise in disorders of intestinal, breast, skin and oral epithelia, Epistem screens new compounds to assess their potential as anti-cancer agents, IBD agents, mucositis modulatory agents, cell cycle stimulators or inhibitors and wound healing regulators. Novel services that Epistem has recently introduced into its research service portfolio include an adoptive T-cell transfer IBD model, in vitro and in vivo cancer stem cell and angiogenesis assays and a unique plucked hair follicle cancer biomarker platform.

Halo BioConsulting is a specialist pharmaceutical/biotechnology consultancy, providing a broad portfolio of commercial consulting and transactional services (including licensing/business development, commercial evaluation and M&A activities) to both the global pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry and the life-science investment sector.

Halo BioConsulting supports companies’ activities in:

• Identification & evaluation of in-licensing opportunities
• Identification & evaluation of out-licensing partners
• Scientific, technical, clinical & commercial due diligence
• M&A/alliance identification & evaluation
• Business planning, market evaluation & competitive analysis
• Non-Exec Director, SAB and interim commercial management roles
• Investor and investee identification/targeting
• Commercial review & development of start-up companies

Currently client portfolio activities include:

• Retained by specialty pharma companies to identify in-licensing opportunities
• Handling multiple out-licensing and M&A opportunities in a diverse range of therapeutic areas (Dermatology, Women's Health, Wound Management, Drug Delivery, Ophthalmology, Oncology)
• Retained by European private equity investors to identify investment/acquisition opportunities in the pharma/biotech/healthcare space

Unique drug lead-finding opportunities through screening the MycoDiverse™ natural products library of basidiomycete metabolites, from fermentations of tropical and temperate mushroom species.

• Producer of high quality natural products libraries for proprietary and collaborative drug lead compound discovery.
• Chemical novelty greater than 50%
• Reproducible, proprietary fermentation of mushroom fungi (basidiomycetes)
• Many compounds chemically tractable
• Strong early stage proprietary oncology pipeline, led by fully synthetic chemical series with mTOR/CDC25 inhibition
• Discovery of patentable molecules via collaboration from only four months after screening Hypha's MycoDiverse chemical library

• Expert (fee for service) provider of contract services
• Compound purification/identification
• Antitumour cell cytotoxicity/antiproliferative bioassays
• Antibacterial and antifungal bioassays
• Fermentation services (low molecular weight compound production/purification)

Isogenica specialises in providing protein engineering and molecular evolution services using its core technology, “CIS display”, to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for the rapid discovery, identification and design of new peptide polypeptide and antibody lead compounds.

CIS display can quickly construct polypeptide libraries of unprecedented size and complexity in vitro, without the need for cloning. A library of up to a hundred trillion different clones can be easily generated in a few hours and quickly processed so that better products and motifs can be selected in just a few days. CIS display technology has provided hits and information against a wide range of targets and has advantages over alternative technologies.

The technology is adaptable for the display of different proteins and licences are available for scFv and other polypeptide scaffolds. Isogenica has secured more than a dozen partnering and licensing deals to date and is seeking further collaborations with companies actively engaged in developing peptide and polypeptide systems.

Moredun Scientific is a GLP/ GMP accredited contract research organization providing research and testing services to the animal health, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries supporting the development, registration and manufacture of veterinary and human medicines.

Areas of work include:

• Animal Health Contract Research Services: Efficacy and safety studies in livestock for a broad range of veterinary medicinal products. Feed additive studies, antimicrobial pharmacodynamics, and analytical pharmacology. Extensive, flexible animal facilities ranging from high containment to open fields are available.
• Biosafety Testing Services: In vivo assays for the detection of viral contaminants. Tumorigenicity studies. Microbiology services including tests for sterility, mycoplasma and mycobacteria. All tests are conducted to meet international regulatory guidelines.
• Biological Materials: Custom preparation of a range of biological materials including viruses, bacteria and other material for research or commercial use.
• Collaborative Research: Veterinary medicinal product development, in conjunction with the Moredun Research Institute.

OET Ltd is a biotechnology company and centre of excellence for baculovirus based recombinant protein expression. OET provides protein expression products, services, consultancy and training to pharmaceutical and biotech companies and academic institutions. OET is also carrying out an extensive R & D programme.

O2h is a 5 year old discovery services company with project offices in Cambridge UK and research campus in Ahmedabad, India. The Indian operations provide a high level of chemistry expertise while UK office provides project management support.

Current clients of O2h include several top 20 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the US, Europe and Japan. O2h adheres to the highest standards of performance with a particular emphasis on rapid interactive communications and delivery speed.

Services provided by O2h include FTE-based synthetic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, computational chemistry, full services lab-units and ADME.

Since April 1, 2009, O2h has gone live at its new, 10,000 sq m research facility, which has capacity for 28 dedicated 12 FH lab units. Aside from its core chemistry strengths, O2h have also been enhancing its in-house ADME capability. More information about Biology is available at http://o2h.com/InvitroADME.asp. The business (people, process and infrastructure) has been built to provide a tier one service for managing FTE collaborations.

Established in 2007, PharmaCodes Medical Communications Ltd is a specialist resource for those involved in the promotion of prescription medicines in the UK, Europe or Asia pacific regions.

A mixture of regulation and self-regulation governs the promotion of pharmaceuticals worldwide and the balance between the two differs from country to country. The detailed rules regarding promotional practices are often contained within the national self-regulatory codes of conduct of the pharmaceutical industry associations, which also vary across the world. This makes global, international or pan European marketing of medicines extremely complex. We provide expert advice to pharmaceutical and biotech companies on compliance with these regulations. We also advise and assist pharmaceutical and biotech companies who are starting up in the UK to establish their medical, sales and marketing departments including:

• Setting up medical information and communications to meet the legal requirements of a scientific service;
• Writing and implementing promotional compliance and related policies and procedures
• Medical and educational writing
• Providing interim management at a senior level

The PharmaCodes team blends extensive therapeutic and pharmaceutical industry experience with outstanding knowledge of global pharmaceutical marketing compliance.

Pharmidex was created in in 2002 to provide unique expertise to clients who were developing medicines for CNS diseases. Over the last few years Pharmidex has established itself as the world leading centre for studying the CNS distribution and biochemical effect of new drugs using its proprietary NeuroPK and NeuroPD technologies.

Today Pharmidex provides an extensive range of in vivo and in vitro ADMET/PK and acute and chronic safety support expertise to underpin its world leading position in CNS expertise. Existing platform technologies or bespoke studies to address client specific needs are rapidly undertaken by highly qualified scientists with academic and industry backgrounds.

Piramal Healthcare provides a wide range of API and drug product manufacturing, development and packaging services to meet clinical trial and commercial needs.

Working with companies from top 20 pharma to small virtual pharma, Piramal supply product and services to all major pharmaceutical markets. We manufacture and package Phase I – III clinical trials materials through to commercial volumes for API and solid dosage drug product. Approval by the MHRA of our clinical trials packaging and distribution offering means that we can offer clients with products in development, a full service offering from one location.

We have built a reputation for offering an excellent manufacturing capability and extremely efficient operating systems that deliver outstanding quality. Combined with our uncompromisingly professional attitude and uniquely flexible approach to meet deadlines, Piramal Healthcare endeavours to provide the solution to your out sourcing requirement.

ProImmune is your ideal strategic partner for managing the immunogenicity risk of biological drugs, the discovery of new antigens, e.g. for targeted sub-unit vaccines, and monitoring immune responses, such as cellular and humoral immune responses, with the most advanced technologies.

Whether you are looking to improve the specificity of your therapy, reduce unwanted immunogenicity or simply broaden your IP portfolio, ProImmune can provide all or any part of the solution.

QED Clinical Services is the first Contract Research Organisation (CRO) world-wide to make use of a Franchise model to conduct clinical trials globally. Whilst achieving superb quality throughout all Phases of the drug development process, this approach to conducting trials achieves considerable savings for the biopharmaceutical industry. In business since 2002, in many international studies and in rescue situations where large CROs have failed to deliver, QED has already proven that there is a true alternative to traditional full-service CROs available.

Sareum is a drug discovery company focused on producing targeted small molecule therapeutics to address unmet medical needs, primarily in cancer. The Company aims to successfully deliver drug candidates for licensing to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies at the pre-clinical or early clinical trials stage.

Sareum has a portfolio of discovery-stage, targeted small molecule programmes which it would like to discuss with potential licence and/or collaborative partners.

Sareum Holdings plc joined the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in October 2004, trading under the symbol SAR.

Selcia’s operating divisions are 'Selcia Discovery', which specialises in fragment-based drug discovery using a patented capillary electrophoresis screening platform and 'Selcia Radiolabelling', a recognised international leader in ¹⁴C custom radiosynthesis.

Selcia is a leading provider of contract research services in ¹⁴C custom radiolabelling, drug discovery and medicinal chemistry, based at a 2,500 sqm modern facility with GLP analytical laboratory, in Ongar, Essex (UK). Selcia collaborate and support a diverse range of worldwide based clients from academic institutions, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, to nutrition, cosmetic and crop protection organisations.

Stabilitech has developed a novel proprietary technology which stabilizes vaccines and biopharmaceuticals. Currently, to ensure potency, vaccines and biopharmaceuticals require storage and transport under strictly controlled temperatures in a cold chain. Stabilitech's technology will enable the long term stable storage of vaccines and other biological products over a wide range of temperatures. The technology has been successfully applied to live viral vaccines, inactivated viruses and sub-unit vaccines as well as to antibodies, peptides, enzymes, growth factors and other proteins. Stabilitech's approach involves the addition of carefully selected excipients at optimized concentrations and ratios, followed by freeze drying. The excipients have all been previously used in clinical settings, and all are relatively inexpensive and readily available. The company's business model is to license this technology to major pharma and biotech companies.

Theradex has been a niche provider of oncology drug development services for the past 26 years. The company was founded in 1982 providing oncology monitoring services to the National Cancer Institute in the US. In 1994, Theradex expanded into Europe in order to provide quality oncology drug development services on both a global and local level. Theradex has extensive experience in early phase oncology drug development as well as managing complex Phase 3 registration trials. The company maintains a strong focus on commitment to our clients. Theradex's European headquarters are located in Crawley, West Sussex, and form part of the international Theradex group with headquarters in Princeton, NJ, USA. Theradex provides drug development services to a wide variety of clients including: the US government, US and European cooperative groups, pharmaceutical companies with headquarters throughout the world and biotech companies.

The Technology Partnership (TTP) is a world leading technology and product development business based in Melbourn, just south of Cambridge. TTP has 300 staff and the company is staff owned.

TTP draws on its extensive pool of engineers and scientists to create new medical technologies for its international client base. We work with many of the world’s most successful healthcare companies. Our extensive track record includes the development of novel metered dose and dry powder inhalers, high reliability dose counters, electronic nebulisers, mobile point-of-care instrumentation, smart infusion and injection systems, advanced in-vitro diagnostic systems, surgical technologies and intelligent orthopaedic implants.

TTP has its own extensive laboratory and pre-production manufacturing facilities and employs engineers, scientists and business development specialists of the highest quality. TTP are hands-on implementers of new business strategy with a strong focus on technology and product development.

Warwick Effect Polymers (WEP) is a polymer specialist company focusing on novel technologies to enhance biological therapeutics. WEP’s two proprietary biopolymer technologies are GlycoPol™ for drug targeting and PolyPEG® for extending the half-life of biologics. The Company’s objective is to develop partnerships with third parties to produce GlycoPol™ and PolyPEG® enhanced therapeutics and to license-out the technologies for specific molecules and/or applications.

GlycoPol™ is a glycopolymer technology based on polymers containing a diverse array of carbohydrates that offers the potential to target biological therapeutics, including proteins, peptides, oligonucleotides and nanoparticles, to carbohydrate receptors on specific cells and tissues. PolyPEG® is a next generation PEGylation technology based on comb-shaped, PEG-containing polymers that not only have very low viscosity, allowing high concentrations to be administered to patients without difficulty, but also do not cause the tissue accumulation associated with conventional PEGs.