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In 1999, Tom Blundell (Biochemistry), Chris Abell (Chemistry) and Harren Jhoti cofounded Astex Technology Ltd. to develop an X-ray structure-guided, `fragment-based' approach to drug discovery. This led to a significant change in how the pharmaceutical industry approached drug discovery. Astex Technology Ltd developed four molecules in house using this approach which have in 2013 reached Phase I/II clinical trials for various tumours. Four further molecules have been taken into phase I through collaborations between Astex and Janssen, Novartis and AZ. In 2011 the company was sold to Supergen for $150 million (ca £100 million), creating Astex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., currently with ~120 employees, and a value of >$500 million (>£320 million).
In 1999, Chris Abell (Chemistry), Tom Blundell (Biochemistry), and Harren Jhoti co-founded Astex Technology Ltd. to develop an X-ray structure-guided, `fragment-based' approach to drug discovery. This led to a significant change in how the pharmaceutical industry approached drug discovery. Astex Technology Ltd developed four molecules in-house using this approach, which have in 2013 reached Phase I/II clinical trials for various tumours. Four further molecules have been taken into Phase I through collaborations between Astex and Janssen, Novartis and Astra Zeneca. In 2011 the company was sold to SuperGen, Inc., for $150 million (ca £100 million), creating Astex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., currently with ~120 employees, and a value of >$500 million (> £320 million).
The need to manage, analyse and interpret the volumes of data and literature generated by modern high-throughput biology has become a major barrier to progress. Research at the University of Manchester on interoperability and advanced interfaces has resulted in innovative software (Utopia Documents) that links biomedical data with scientific literature. The software has been adopted by international publishing houses (Portland Press, Elsevier, Springer, etc.), allowing them to explore new business models, and by pharmaceutical companies (e.g. AstraZeneca, Roche), providing new opportunities to explore more efficient, cost-effective methods for exploiting and sharing in-house data and knowledge. The research also led to a spin-out company, Lost Island Labs, in 2012, which expects a profit [text removed for publication] in its first year.
Research at the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering on computer vision tracking led to the creation of Extra Reality Limited in 2010, which was subsequently acquired by a new company called Zappar Limited in May 2011. Zappar employs 17 staff and had revenue of GBP612k in the financial year 2012/13, an increase of 35% on the previous year.
Over 50 different brands have used Zappar's augmented reality application across more than 300 offerings in over 17 countries to deliver entertainment-based marketing interactions from 2011 to 2013. [text removed for publication] Examples of partners include Disney, Warner Brothers and Marvel. Zappar has changed attitudes in the media sector by showing that "augmented reality is finally ready for prime time" (President, Creative Strategies Inc, Time Online, 2012).
UCL's pioneering use of 3D body surface scanning and national anthropometric surveys has had impact in the fashion industry and healthcare. In 2008, a UCL spinout, Sizemic, was founded to sell clothing size charts and fit mannequins based on the UK survey data, helping manufacturers and retailers improve the fit of their clothing, and reduce their product development times and costs. Sizemic now has 10 employees and a turnover of £1m. The research also led to other national sizing surveys, including in Germany (2008/9), Thailand (2009/10) and Mexico (2010), with results used for product development. In 2009, UCL built a prototype 3D-healthcare system for GPs and established a company, ShapeDynamics, to support the platform. The software is being tested at a private healthcare practice in London. Another UCL spinout, Bodymetrics, has commercialised body scanners for use as a clothes-fitting aid in stores.
The Geometric Modelling and Pattern Recognition (GMPR) Group at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) has developed and patented internationally-known line projection technologies for fast 3D scan, reconstruction and recognition. Three types of impact can be identified: (i) through our patents, we have licensed to companies in Europe and the USA; (ii) these technologies are being transferred to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) across Europe, through the European funded MARWIN and ADMOS projects; and (iii) social and cultural impacts are evidenced by the 3D scanning of representative items from the Museums Sheffield Metalwork Collection which have been made publicly available on the web, and through the `Man of Steel' community project where a landmark sculpture will form a gateway to South Yorkshire and the Sheffield City Region.
Research at the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering (DoEng) since 1997 created methods for reconstructing a three-dimensional (3D) model of an object from a single two-dimensional photograph. Metail, a company founded in 2008, sponsored further research at the DoEng and commercialised the results in an online fashion retailing application. Metail enables customers to select an item of clothing and see how they would look wearing it from a variety of angles, having entered just one photograph of themselves and a few basic body measurements. Metail attracted over GBP3.5M investment. Its application is used by Shop Direct, Tesco, Warehouse, Zalando and Dafiti. Sales data shows that the Metail application increases the propensity of customers to buy and reduces the proportion of goods returned.
Since 2008, pioneering contributions to the field of computational chemistry for drug discovery have been made by InhibOx Ltd., a spin-out company based on the research of Graham Richards and co-workers at the University of Oxford. InhibOx launched Scopius, the world's largest searchable virtual database of small-molecules (>112 million compounds) and pioneered the use of cloud computing for large-scale molecular modelling. The key impact for customers of InhibOx has been the reduced costs in identifying molecular leads for new drugs. InhibOx's work has helped to open up early stages of drug development to smaller companies; 75% of InhibOx's clients are SMEs. Since 2008, InhibOx has received £ 2.8M in income and investment.
The Boujou special effects software was developed from research carried out at the Department of Engineering Science. It enables sophisticated computer generated imagery (CGI) to be quickly and easily added to `real' film footage, facilitating the visual effects that feature so importantly in films such as Harry Potter and X-Men. The software has become an essential tool used by film-makers, TV advert producers, and video game manufacturers, and for instance played a pivotal role in helping `The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' win the 2009 Oscar for Best Visual Effects. Between 2008 and 2013, sales of Boujou totalled £1.37 million and this software boosted productivity and profitability right across the global digital entertainment industry.
The activities of the Organic Materials Innovation Centre (OMIC) at the University of Manchester generate impact from its research activities through knowledge transfer to industry. This is exemplified by:
Provision of research-based training in the field of printed electronics and sensors to over 250 people from 2008 onwards.