Deep Science Ventures partners with Cancer Research UK, The World's Largest Independent Funder of Cancer Research

LONDON, Sept. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Deep Science Ventures (DSV), a new paradigm for applied science, today announced a partnership with Cancer Research UK, the world's largest independent funder of cancer research.

Deep Science Ventures was founded to create a better method for launching science companies – one that takes a systems-level view of the opportunity from the start, both at the industry and biological level.

Through their partnership with Cancer Research UK, DSV will seek to build at least three companies over the next year. DSV will principally work with Cancer Research UK's network of early academics while also bringing in researchers and industry experts from related disciplines across the world.

"The field of oncology is a particularly good example of how our model could improve the potential impact of science," said Dr. Mark Hammond, Founding Director of Deep Science Ventures. "While there are incredibly talented people working in the field and enormous amounts of funding, the sector still suffers from many of the broader challenges in pharmaceuticals. As the low hanging fruit has been addressed and pharma ROI plummets, we urgently need increasingly precise, dynamic, stratified, and intelligent therapies that are unlikely to arise from the linear model of typical asset development. This partnership allows us to bring together the outstanding research capability of Cancer Research UK's network with DSV's model of rapidly exploring the combinatorial potential of different sciences to address the complexity presented by some of the hardest questions in oncology."

Their initial areas of focus will be synthetic biology approaches to managing the complexity of the tumour microenvironment, unpicking cell-cell communication, modelling the interaction between cancer and the immune system, and DNA maintenance. DSV will launch these ventures – along with early data – around this time next year.

"We are pleased to partner with Deep Science Ventures and believe their approach of tackling a problem across the entire research pipeline is what is needed to encourage innovation in cancer research," said Tony Hickson, Chief Business Officer of Cancer Research UK's. "Our new Entrepreneurial Programme Initiative is the first of its kind for Cancer Research UK and we hope with our partners' help we can progress more promising entrepreneurial ideas into life saving treatments for patients."

The DSV team first identified the challenges with science commercialisation while working at Imperial College's technology investment house. Over the last two years they've developed a unique model, which rigorously analyses the root causes behind the failure of technology ventures in a sector and then builds new ventures specifically to address these constraints. Over the last two years they've built over 20 ventures using this model to tackle everything from neurodegeneration to battery R&D.

About Deep Science Ventures

Deep Science Ventures is a new paradigm for applied science. We bring together teams of scientists to seize crucial opportunities and redefine industries.

Humanity faces a host of systematic challenges. To solve these challenges demands a radical new framework. The linear commercialisation models of academia and industry constrain the enormous potential of applied science and are no longer fit for purpose.

Deep Science Ventures was founded to create a better method for launching science companies, one that takes a systems level view of the opportunity from day one.

Rather than spin-out companies on the back of IP that is hot or on-trend, we take a step back and distill it down to the fundamental challenges within the system. Then, our global network of founder-type scientists build "holy grail" ventures that have the potential to redesign entire sectors.

Learn more about Deep Science Ventures and their thesis in Pharma at https://deepscienceventures.com/. For all investment and partnership enquiries in Pharma, contact Mark Hammond at [email protected].

About Cancer Research UK

About Cancer Research UK's Commercial Partnerships Team
Our specialist Commercial Partnerships Team works with leading international cancer scientists and their institutes to protect intellectual property arising from their research and to establish links with commercial partners. The team develop promising ideas into successful cancer therapeutics, software, devices, diagnostics and enabling technologies. This helps to accelerate progress in exciting new discoveries in cancer research and bring new treatments to patients sooner.

Visit http://commercial.cancerresearchuk.org/.

About Cancer Research UK

• Cancer Research UK is the world's leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research.
• Cancer Research UK's pioneering work into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer has helped save millions of lives.
• Cancer Research UK receives no funding from the UK government for its life-saving research. Every step it makes towards beating cancer relies on vital donations from the public.
• Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of the progress that has already seen survival in the UK double in the last 40 years.
• Today, 2 in 4 people survive their cancer for at least 10 years. Cancer Research UK's ambition is to accelerate progress so that by 2034, 3 in 4 people will survive their cancer for at least 10 years.
• Cancer Research UK supports research into all aspects of cancer through the work of over 4,000 scientists, doctors and nurses.
• Together with its partners and supporters, Cancer Research UK's vision is to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured.

For further information about Cancer Research UK's work or to find out how to support the charity, please call 0300 123 1022 or visit http://www.cancerresearchuk.org. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

SOURCE Deep Science Ventures

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