3 October, 2018
LONDON & CAMBRIDGE, UK: Ahren announced today that one of its founding Science Partners, Sir Gregory Winter, has been awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work in developing phage display for the directed evolution of antibodies and peptides to produce new medicines. He shares the Nobel Prize with Frances Arnold and George Smith.
Alice Newcombe-Ellis, Founder & CEO, Ahren Innovation Capital, LLP, said: “Sir Gregory’s use of phage display to create new antibodies has been exceptionally important in science and medicine. We are very proud that Sir Gregory has been recognised by the Nobel Committee and we are delighted to have him as one of our Science Partners. Sir Gregory’s astute commerciality and creativity are a great asset to us.”
Sir Gregory is Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, is a fellow of the Royal Society, and was knighted in 2004 for services to science. His research career has been mainly based at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. Using phage display, Sir Gregory invented techniques to humanise rodent antibodies for use as therapeutics.
Later he developed methods to make fully human antibodies against human self-antigens using antibody libraries. His inventions are used in most of the antibody products on the market, including the first human antibody (adalimumab/Humira®) to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He was a founder of Cambridge Antibody Technology (1989) and Domantis (2000), acquired by AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline respectively in 2006 as they increased their focus on antibody therapeutics. Sir Gregory is also founder and Board member of Bicycle Therapeutics, an Ahren portfolio company. Bicycle Therapeutics is pioneering a new class of therapeutics based on its proprietary bicyclic peptide (Bicycle®) product platform.
Ahren LP is an investment fund that supports transformational companies at the cutting edge of deep science and deep tech. The technologies of its Founding Partners are today valued in excess of $100BN combined.
A group of highly diverse, creative and original thinkers leading their domains, Ahren believes in taking considered risk that will deliver superior rewards – capturing a generational opportunity to provide smart capital to deep technology pioneers.
With a philosophy espousing the importance of relationships and trust, Ahren provides long-term capital and support to exceptional founders and teams, empowering them to achieve the unimaginable.
Ahren’s Founding & Science Partners include:
Alice Newcombe-Ellis, Founder & CEO, formerly an investor at TPG Capital and Lansdowne Partners, First Class degree in Mathematics and Master’s in Mathematics/Physics from the University of Cambridge, Fulbright and Baker Scholar at Harvard Business School.
Sir Shankar Balasubramanian, principal inventor of the leading next generation human genome sequencing technology core to all Illumina sequencing platforms, estimated worth >$30BN.
Professor John Daugman, Head of Artificial Intelligence Group of Cambridge University, inventor of IRIS (eye) recognition technology used to register 1.5BN citizens worldwide.
Professor Zoubin Ghahramani, world leader in machine learning, co-founder of Geometric Intelligence, sold to Uber for an undisclosed amount.
Professor Steve Jackson, founder/co-founder of three companies and originator of Olaparib/Lynparza, recently partnered by AstraZeneca with Merck and valued as an asset at up to $17BN.
Professor Andy Parker, CERN leader, Head of the Cavendish Laboratory (Physics Department) of Cambridge University.
Sir Venki Ramakrishnan, Nobel prize laureate and President of the Royal Society, the UK’s premier science body.
Lord Martin Rees, world-renowned astrophysicist, Astronomer Royal, founder of CSER, former President of the Royal Society and former Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University.
Sir Gregory Winter, inventor of technology leading to Humira ($18BN sales in 2017, the world’s greatest grossing drug) and founder of three companies. Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University.
Chairman of the Ahren LP Limited Partner Advisory Committee:
Robert Swannell, CBE, also Chairman of UK Government Investments, the UK Government’s centre of excellence in corporate finance and governance.
For more information, contact info@ahren.co.uk or visit ahreninnovationcapital.com
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