MIA finalist is first equity crowdfunded university spin-out

Pulmorphix, a spin-out from Liverpool John Moores University has been named as a finalist for the 2014 Merseyside Innovation Awards (MIA). The company was selected by a cross-section of the business community and will now go head-to-head with two other companies at a prestigious event at the Crowne Place Hotel in Liverpool on 10 July.

The spin-out company has created a technology platform that replicates the conditions deep in the human lung and was developed by Dr Mike Davies at the LJMU School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences.

This will give drug developers a reliable way of understanding how drugs will behave when inhaled so that medicines can be developed with improved formulations. This can avoid the requirement for injections and can benefit countries where refrigeration of vaccines is an issue.

Pulmorphix has also recently become the first UK university spin-out company to raise investment via equity crowdfunding. Having already secured a substantial grant from the Technology Strategy Board, Pulmorphix raised seed capital via equity crowd-funder Crowdcube. The investment campaign was overfunded and will enable Pulmorphix to develop the technology platform into a commercial business-to-business testing service.

Emma Nolan, IP and Commercialisation Manager in Research and Innovation Services commented:

  "We are delighted to be named as finalists in the prestigious Merseyside Innovation Awards. Pulmorphix offers a fantastic opportunity for investors to support an exciting new hi-tech company which has the potential to transform how the pharmaceutical industry develops and tests inhaled drugs. It also proves the equity crowd funding model and paves the way for other universities to follow suite and raise early stage funding for spin-out companies."

Dr Kish Mistry, CEO said:

  "Although the market is unexplored, as this is disruptive technology, we estimate that the dissolution profiling market in the UK could be worth around £150 million per annum. We are already talking to several major biopharmaceutical companies involved in drug delivery treatment via the lungs, who are interested in our services and technology. We are confident that within five years we will be the market leader for testing inhaled drugs and can deliver excellent returns for our investors."

For more information about Pulmorphix visit the website