Newcastle University spinout Aelius Biotech has raised £1.25m investment from the North East Venture Fund. The company now plans to open new lab facilities in the city centre.
Aelius Biotech provides testing services for pharmaceutical and nutrition companies, using a model of a human gut to trial new drugs without the use of animals.
The North East Venture Fund is managed by Mercia Ventures and supported by the European Regional Development Fund. The funding will also allow the growing business to create 10 new jobs over the next two years.
They will continue their research and development to improve and automate their innovative model, and will now step up sales and marketing activity, as well as expanding their technical team.
Newcastle’s Dr Peter Chater, Dr Matt Wilcox and Professor Jeff Pearson founded the company five years ago and benefitted from a range of Northern Accelerator support.
Executives into Business funding allowed the company to strengthen their leadership in the initial stages. The team also accessed bespoke consultancy through Northern Accelerator’s now-concluded Innovation Assessment programme, and more recently through the growth support initiative.
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