The Babraham Investor Conference is an annual event for investors focusing on early-stage and scale-up life science and med-tech companies.
In 2023 the 17th annual conference, was held on Thursday 21st September and saw more than 150 company founders, investors and industry leaders come together to celebrate the success of scientific discovery taking place at the world-leading research Campus and within the wider life science ecosystem.
Dr Michael Anstey specialises in life science investments and manages CIC’s investments in Bicycle Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BCYC), Congenica, Immutrin, PredictImmune, PolyProx Therapeutics, Sense Bio, Start Codon and Storm Therapeutics.
Before joining CIC he was a Principal in the Healthcare Practice Area at The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Toronto office. Michael has experience in advising multinational businesses across North America, Europe, India, and Japan.
Michael was also co-founder of an early-stage biotechnology company focused on developing small molecule drugs that target protein-protein interactions implicated in disease. Prior to BCG, Michael worked at Oxford Capital Partners, where he focused on investing in early-stage life science businesses.
Michael earned his DPhil in Zoology in the field of neurobiology from the University of Oxford.
Cassie is an Investment Director with Parkwalk Advisors specialising in Healthcare and Life Sciences.
Cassie joined Parkwalk Advisors in June 2019, a fund whose focus is investing in University spin out companies. Prior to this, from 2008 she worked at IP Group Plc as an Investor in their Life Sciences team. She has strong experience of investment rounds, company strategy, operations and governance. Cassie sits on several company Boards, including Ikarovec Ltd and MoA Technology Ltd. Cassie is also a Trustee for the Leeds Hospitals Charity.
In her early career Cassie had hands on experience of technology commercialisation. She worked for a start-up that took drugs developed during her PhD into Phase II clinical trials.
Miao focuses on early-stage ventures in biotechnology and life sciences. She is an investment professional at Luminous Ventures, a UK-based venture capital firm focusing on human health and deep tech. Previously she worked as a Bioinformatics Scientist at Illumina, where she developed new algorithms for interpreting genomic sequencing data to help deliver better cancer management. At Illumina she worked with the early members of Solexa and collaborated with key opinion leaders in academia and Genomics England on the 100,000 Genomes Project. Miao has worked in early-stage investing at OurCrowd, a venture capital firm in Israel, and has carried out consulting work for Cancer Research UK and Ori Biotech.
Miao holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from London Business School. She is the author of 18 peer-reviewed publications and has published in high-impact journals such as Nature Genetics. Her research has been featured in the Guardian, BBC News, LA Times etc.
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There has been significant public investment through the provision of land and construction of additional Campus capabilities, including bio-incubator, conferencing and meeting facilities, which have been key to establishing the innovation aspects of the Campus. £100M has been invested by the UK Government to date. This is in addition to the long-term strategic investment by BBSRC-UKRI in the Babraham Institute. This public investment has also attracted further private sector investment into the Campus to provide follow-on space for growing companies from BioMed Realty (construction of Biomed@Babraham fully fitted lab and flexible office buildings) and Kadans (for a facility constructed and previously owned by Imperial College London).
A world leader in providing real estate solutions to the life science and technology communities, Biomed partnered with us in 2017 to develop the next generation of scale-up space on Campus. All 100,000 sq ft of the mixed lab and office space was leased prior to completion of the two buildings, which bit.bio, Inivata, Mission Therapeutics, Petmedix and RxCelerate now call home. Enjoy a tour of the building here.
Investor engagement activities which are a key part of life on the Campus - and specific events (eg: Babraham Investor Conference) as well as links with organisations like Cambridge Enterprise - have contributed to attracting high quality private investment into the companies located on Campus (£300M invested in Campus companies in 2017/18, and £1.2 bn to date). With evidence showing that being located on the Campus accelerates the rate at which, and amount of investment, that companies have been able to raise. The establishment, with partners, of the Campus’ bio-entrepreneurial programme, Accelerate@Babraham, and strong links with the Start Codon accelerator fund provide further access to support and investment for the Campus community.
Chris Chapman, Director of Campus and Facilities, is responsible for the operation and development of the Campus and its estate and has worked at the Babraham Research Campus for 40 years. In this article, Chris credits the successful development of the Babraham Research Campus to ‘The Six C’s’: Campus, Community, Connectivity, Culture, Capability, and Commercialisation: “We are committed to these important component parts. Collectively, they describe what you need to have in place to have a thriving campus; individually, each one has its own particular function that contributes to the wider experience and character of the Campus.”
In this article, Karolina Zapadka, former Head of Accelerate@Babraham, who is passionate about facilitating and accelerating opportunities and growth for early-stage life science ventures explores the key ingredients needed to develop a successful incubator initiative. She explains the key role the Campus community and the power it’s intrinsic knowledge of building commercially viable life science businesses plays in facilitating others’ successes.
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The Babraham Research Campus: At the forefront in supporting the UK’s Bioscience Enterprises