Biotech ValiRx’s new spin-out prompted its evolution from a virtual operation to encompass wet labs. Suzy Dilly charts the journey of construction, integrating scientific assets, and launching in a new ‘translational CRO’ format.
Last year, virtual biotech ValiRx announced the launch of spin-out company, Inaphaea BioLabs. The new subsidiary was formed to provide a wide range of pre-clinical and drug discovery testing services to academic, biotech and pharmaceutical researchers, as well as servicing the ValiRx preclinical pipeline requirements.
Forming the foundation of ValiRx’s translational CRO (tCRO) strategy, Inaphaea’s launch saw a move from a solely virtual business to having cutting-edge wet laboratory capabilities.
ValiRx accelerates the development of treatments in cancer and women’s health to improve patient lives. We provide the scientific, financial and commercial framework to enable the rapid translation of innovative science into clinical development. Historically, ValiRx has operated as a virtual biotech company, outsourcing all testing of evaluation and preclinical projects to a range of different external contract research organisations (CROs).
As our project pipeline evolved and we began to work on more projects within early-stage drug development, we recognised that setting up our own wet lab would enable us to carry out the initial lab work more quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively
This approach met our needs at the time, as ValiRx was focused on developing and progressing a smaller number of projects through clinical development and thus using a broader range of laboratory techniques.
Therefore, it wasn’t sensible for us to have our own lab, as we were always needing to access the next piece of equipment or skillset.
However, as our project pipeline evolved and we began to work on more projects within early-stage drug development, we recognised that setting up our own wet lab would enable us to carry out the initial lab work more quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively. It would provide us with a strong framework to identify additional capabilities and technologies to acquire and incorporate into the business in the longer term.
And so, the idea for Inaphaea was born, with the aim of providing new laboratory infrastructure to allow ValiRx to conduct initial testing in-house, creating a more efficient and effective translational drug development service for both internal and third-party use.
Building a tCRO
Our aim from the start was to integr ate all the elements we consider crucial to making a CRO into a tCRO.
This means making sure the science we perform at the early, preclinical stage of development is relevant to generate biological results and data that can be understood and used later in the development phases.
Late-stage attrition and why clinical trials fail are always hot topics of conversation. While there are many reasons for these, an important factor is that something hasn’t been understood about biology right at the beginning of the process. By stepping in at the beginning and helping people to make better choices about drug candidates and present the drugs to the human body in the right way, we can create improved understanding, improved translation and better drug development pathways.
To achieve this, we needed a wet laboratory, and we secured a 910 sq ft facility at MediCity, Nottingham in February 2023. Based in Beeston, MediCity is a medtech incubator and part of Pioneer Group. The latter provides resident businesses with access to a connected local and national biotech community and flexible laboratory space to allow for future growth.
Despite not being in the life sciences ‘golden triangle’, Nottingham offers the ideal base for the lab, with the city having established itself as a hub for life science companies and affording access to a strong pool of local scientific skills and talent from local researchbased universities and hospitals.
At this stage, work had already begun to build a first-class scientific and operational team and we were interviewing scientists to bring them into a lab that was, at that stage, still an empty room. We soon made three senior appointments to Inaphaea, including Dr Andrew Carnegie as head of strategic commercial development, Melissa Barr as lead scientist, Dr Dominic Lowen as senior scientist and Amelia Hatfield as a scientist.
Key to our progress was leveraging the team’s skillsets, particularly those of ValiRx preclinical project manager Zai Ahmad, who had experience of setting up a lab and closely project managed the entire process, which commenced in March 2023. As part of this, Zai ensured all equipment was optimised for our work and that the principles of Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) were embedded from the very beginning.
Transferring scientific assets
Following ValiRx’s successful bid for Imagen Therapeutics’ scientific assets, which includes an extensive biobank of patient-derived cells (PDCs), we had just three weeks to arrange the lab move and transfer all relevant equipment from Daresbury and Manchester to Inaphaea’s facility at MediCity in Nottingham.
The first step was to gather quotes from removal companies who could fulfil our request at such short notice. We were soon introduced to Restore Harrow Green Laboratory Services who quickly stepped up to the mark, offering a great amount of flexibility and a strong track record of lab removals, which was particularly important to us, given the fragile nature of the kit.
Throughout the move, we ensured that nothing useful went to landfill and so any equipment that wasn’t transferred to Inaphaea was either sold to other local laboratories or to a second-hand company.
We planned the layout of the lab before the initial move, so we selected all the equipment we planned to keep and were able to position the larger pieces of kit in the most appropriate and convenient positions in the lab.
Back in Nottingham, the equipment was unpacked, cleaned down and connected. We soon began to see the lab come to life.
Now fully operational, Inaphaea aims to be [a] ‘lab down the corridor’, offering wet lab capability, additional capacity, access to specific equipment, our patient-derived cell biobank and our scientists’ skills and capabilities.
Dr Suzy Dilly is ValiRx CEO and director at Inaphaea
