Portfolio Company News

25 August 2010

Imperial Innovations Group plc

Paul Mulhollem joins Mycologix as chairman; two new ventures launched

London, 25 August 2010. Imperial Innovations Group plc (AIM: IVO, or 'Innovations'), a leading technology commercialisation and investment company, announces that Paul Mulhollem will join its portfolio company Mycologix as chairman.

Formerly president and chief operating officer of the global agricultural company Archer Daniels Midland, Mr Mulhollem has more than 30 years experience of agricultural feedstock and biofuel production. His decision to become chairman is a significant endorsement of Mycologix, which is developing innovative ways to process woody material and turn it into biofuels such as ethanol.

Innovations provided £400,000 of seed funding and incubation facilities that helped Dr. Richard Murphy and colleagues from Imperial College London launch Mycologix in 2009. The company is led by the biofuel and energy entrepreneur Nick Brooks, who spent 30 years at Shell before working with a number of Biofuels businesses. He joined Mycologix as chief executive after a spell as one of Innovations' entrepreneurs in residence.

Susan Searle, Innovations Chief Executive, commented:

"We are delighted that an entrepreneur of Paul Mulhollem's reputation has agreed to join Mycologix as chairman. With his experience, the leadership of Nick Brooks and the backing of Innovations, we are confident that Mycologix will soon become a valuable company in the Innovations portfolio."

In addition to the appointment of Paul Mulhollem at Mycologix, Innovations announces the launch of two new ventures, Ervitech and Indigix.

Ervitech is developing proprietary technology to measure breathing rate using a small, wearable acoustic detector. Based on the work of founder scientists Esther Rodriquez Villegas from Imperial College London and John Duncan of University College London, the company's device addresses the limitations of earlier acoustic breathing monitors by removing interference from background noise, speech and internal sounds such as heartbeat. These advances allow Ervitech's device to achieve similar accuracy to other techniques that use expensive and bulky monitoring equipment.

Indigix is developing a novel platform technology that can modify the immunological response in a variety of major medical diseases. The company was launched to commercialise research by Professor Sunil Shaunak MD PhD, who previously founded PolyTherics, another Innovations portfolio company. His work was identified as potentially valuable during a review of Imperial College London's research into infectious diseases, conducted by Innovations Entrepreneur in Residence Dr. Robert Feldman MD PhD. Potential applications for Indigix's technology include the treatment of diarrhoeal diseases, inflammatory bowel disease and improved wound healing.

Enquiries:

Notes to editors

Imperial Innovations - www.imperialinnovations.co.uk 

Innovations creates, builds and invests in pioneering technologies addressing global problems in healthcare, energy and engineering. It combines deep understanding of science and technology with commercial acumen and strong investment expertise. 

Innovations supports scientist-entrepreneurs in the commercialisation of their ideas by:

·; leading the formation of new companies and providing facilities in the early stages

·; providing significant investment and encouraging co-investment to accelerate the transition from R&D to products 

·; providing operational expertise

·; helping to recruit high-calibre industry figures and experienced entrepreneurs as executive management and Board members.

Innovations has exclusive access to scientific and technological developments coming out of Imperial College London, one of the world's leading research institutions. It has already achieved significant success with its early investments; for example its £1.5m investment in obesity drug developer Thiakis could return up to £22m, following its sale to Wyeth for £100m in 2008, while the sale of Respivert, a small molecule drug discovery company resulted in Innovations realising £9.5m, a 4.7x return on investment.

In the year to July 2009, Innovations invested £14.4m in 20 ventures, helping to launch six new companies. With a technology portfolio of more than 80 companies, Innovations' most advanced assets, in addition to Thiakis, include:

·; Ceres Power (now listed on AIM): Micro combined heat and power generators for domestic use

·; Circassia: Innovative vaccines for the treatment of a wide range of allergies

·; Nexeon: Advanced materials that extend the cycle life and significantly increase capacity of rechargeable batteries

·; Veryan: Stents inspired by the human vascular system

About Mycologix

Mycologix is focusing on second-generation biofuel production using a combination of microbial treatment and engineering expertise to degrade woody material on an industrial scale and liberate the building-block sugars that can then be fermented into fuels such as ethanol. Its proprietary process and technology aim to overcome many of the limitations of conventional wood-degradation methods that are both expensive and energy intensive. Furthermore, by using woody material produced outside of the food chain, the Mycologix technique can help to overcome many of the ethical objections to biofuel production, which has typically used food crops such as corn.

Mycologix is based on advances in the understanding of wood decay mechanisms developed over decades of research by Dr. Richard Murphy, reader in Plant Science at Imperial College London. Mycologix is developing a low cost, highly efficient, industrial scale biological pre-treatment for processing woody biomass for bioenergy, using Brown Rot Fungi to gain access to the useful carbohydrate content of woody biomass and then synthesise it into biofuel. The company has received £400,000 seed funding from Innovations, as well as TSB grant funding to the value of £100,000 to build proof-of-concept demonstration of its processes.

About Ervitech

Ervitech is led by three experienced biotechnology entrepreneurs. Professor Frank Christ, formerly head of the Cardiac Anaesthesiology department of the Ludwig Maximillian University of Munich and founder of two biotechnology ventures in the field of microcirculatory patient monitoring, has been appointed Chairman. Frank brings two advisors to Ervitech: Professor Simon Best - formerly an Entrepreneur in Residence at TVM Capital and has helped to raise over £130 million for his companies in the past 15 years, among them Zeneca Plant Science, Roslin Biomed and Ardana; and Rolf Dieter an investment banker who held senior management roles within Hornblower Fischer and is now managing partner with Munich Medical International - a sector focused advisory firm.

About Indigix

Indigix is developing a platform technology that can be used to treat a variety of conditions related to inflammation caused by 'Gram negative' bacterially derived lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Potential applications for Indigix's technology include the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, improved wound healing, and the prevention and/or treatment of infectious bacterial diarrhoeas, on which the company will focus initially, with potential markets including travellers and the military.