Cambridge UK: A grant from Innovate UK was awarded to Kuano, an o2h Ventures portfolio company for designing the next generation of cancer drugs. Kuano is a discovery platform that combines target quantum mapping and AI led chemistry to enable faster development of drug candidates.
Innovate UK is a government body that provides financial support to researchers, businesses, and innovators for their ground-breaking or radical products, services, discoveries, etc. through various competitions and challenges.
Kuano won funding from the highly competitive Biomedical Catalyst 2022 Round 1: industry-led R&D for their project worth half a million pounds towards the streamlined and targeted design of NOTUM inhibitors as colorectal cancer drugs. After an initial investment from o2h Ventures in March 2021; we are pleased that Kuano has been able to win further non-dilutive grant funding to support the development of its assets. o2h Ventures has recently followed-on its investment alongside existing investors Meltwind as well as new investor Ascension.
Vid Stojevic, CEO of Kuano: “The goal of Kuano is to develop a revolutionary quantum-led approach to drug discovery. I am very proud of the progress Kuano has made so far to validate our vision. It is exciting to have received InnovateUK support which will enable us to further develop our approach specifically for the colorectal cancer therapeutic area, paving the way to enable real world impact for colorectal cancer sufferers in the years to come.”
Sunil Shah, CEO of o2h Ventures: “Kuano is building an exciting Techbio company that can speed up the discovery pathway for new drug candidates. Kuano has built a solid team of both computational and scientists to support this endeavor, and we are very happy that Innovate UK recognised this and are supporting the company with a substantial award.”
About Kuano
The discovery platform of Kunao uniquely combines target quantum mapping and AI led chemistry to enable faster development of better drug candidates. Their unique approach tackles common challenges in both AI driven drug design and target driven drug discovery.
About o2h Ventures
The o2h Ventures ‘Human Health’ SEIS and Knowledge Intensive (KI) funds make tax-efficient investments in Pre-Seed and Seed stage companies that address human disease. The main focus of the investments is on the development of novel therapeutic treatments with a clear path to the clinic.
The o2h team are leaders in the biotech community and have been actively involved as investors, holding various board/industry positions as well as being engaged in grassroots scientific activity for over 20 years. o2h Ventures operates from their proprietary 2.7-acre Mill SciTech Park where they are developing a unique model for incubating small life science companies.
For more information about our portfolio or to invest in the fund, please visit www.o2hventures.com.
Media Contact:
Juhi Shah
Marketing Manager
o2h Ventures
