Breakfast in Mayfair

The Life Sciences Practice breakfast seminar on 21 May attracted a cross section of senior executives from the bioscience community. Held in the Harvey Nash Board Room at our Mayfair offices, this was a well-attended event.

Given the challenges facing the industry today it was great to hear from Malcolm Weir, CEO of Heptares, who discussed his recent success in securing £21 million of equity finance in Series A funding. Using its StaR technology platform which allows engineering and purifying of GPCRs in stable forms, Heptares intends to use the new funds to develop its own pipeline of small-molecule drug candidates.

Malcolm’s presentation was highly interactive and our guests engaged in a lively discussion on the areas which gave Heptares the winning formula. Overall, it was agreed that investors buy into an exceptional technology proposition from a strong team. Other areas debated included the exit strategy presented by Heptares to the investor community, the choice of a US investor versus a UK-based one, the business model with regards to external partnerships and the most effective usage of the secured funding.

Following this enjoyable morning session, there was the opportunity to catch up and network with peers in the industry before heading off for a days work!

Our breakfast seminars are held every few months. If you are interested in presenting or have any topics you would like us to cover, please contact the Life Sciences team on 0207 333 1515.

May 28, 2009 05:15 PM | Permalink