UK-based product design and development firm Cambridge Consultants has formed new spin-out company Evonetix with an aim to transform the synthetic biology industry.
The new company opens opportunities for rapid drug discovery that is significantly important for personalised ‘precision’ medicine or the discovery of next-generation antibiotics.
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Evonetix focuses on the production of DNA with a very high-accuracy nature that includes the error rate to be less than one in a billion.
Evonetix CEO Nick McCooke said: “We are applying an engineering approach to biology, using our multidisciplinary skills to take new technology and apply it in the real world.
“Combined with our commercial expertise, it means we are uniquely placed to take this radical new idea to market.”
High-quality DNA is essential for facilitating larger use of synthetic biology techniques in order to unlock advances within personalised medicine, that can provide customised treatment to each patient when required.
Proper DNA synthesis is very important at many stages of the drug development process as it helps understand the exact mechanism of a disease by allowing test cells to be accurately modified.
DNA synthesis allows cells to be engineered in order to become manufacturing units for production of specific biopharmaceuticals.
It also allows accurate, cell-based screening assays that are designed to test responses to a drug.
Cambridge Consultants ventures director Ray Edgson said: “We have a track record of creating spin-outs that change market dynamics and disrupt whole industries.”
Evonetix is a new introduction of the portfolio of 20 spin-out companies from Cambridge Consultants, which has been at the centre of the Cambridge technology cluster in the UK for more than 50 years.
Image: Evonetix chief executive officer Nick McCooke. Photo: courtesy of Cambridge Consultants.
