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30 May 2014Europe

Imanova: investing in know-how

Given the spiralling costs and ever-present risks associated with developing a new drug, pharmaceutical companies are always looking for ways to shorten the pathway from lab bench to clinic.

Some of the approaches they use—such as big data analysis and virtual organs—could be said to be almost as innovative as the products being developed. But there’s another solution: to use existing technologies in a different way.

Imaging technologies such as positron emission tomography (PET), usually used to show three-dimensional images of cancerous tumours or brain activity, can also show a drug’s interaction with disease targets inside the human body, and play a part in disease function research.

Providing windows

London-based imaging centre Imanova uses a range of different imaging technologies to support drug development and research in its collaborations with academics and drug discovery companies.

As it isn’t always possible to rely on data from animal trials, the faster a company can finish them and start the first human clinical trials, the better.

“That’s where imaging plays a very significant role,” says Kevin Cox, chief executive at Imanova.

“Because you’re able to image a human very early on, in a non-invasive, low-risk approach, you can get real knowledge about what a drug is doing inside the body, or what’s happening in a certain disease pathway, and how that’s impacted by external factors such as treatments.

"There are very few other technologies that can give you this information for humans."

This approach has value, not just for academic research but also for the pharmaceutical companies Imanova works with. Instead of continuing to invest time and money in what may be an ineffective drug, companies can decide earlier which candidates to take forward, and progress to the next stage of development.

Furthermore, imaging provides information about dosage levels and helps in candidate selection, and shows whether the drug reaches its target.

“It’s a very powerful technique,” says Cox, and one that can potentially save drug development companies lots of money.

Imanova targets pharmaceutical companies as well as biotechnology companies to provide its services. “At the moment we work with the majority of the large pharmaceutical companies worldwide,” Cox says, noting that the firm is currently running about 100 clinical studies.

"you get the money only if you exploit the technology—not if you patent it. You can restrict the exploitation if your patenting strategy is too rigorous.”

Once GlaxoSmithKline’s imaging laboratory, Imanova was established as a company in its own right in 2011, after the pharmaceutical company sold the operation to a consortium of three London university colleges—King’s College London, Imperial College London and University College London—and the Medical Research Council.

It has two main roles, Cox explains: to support the research of the universities and its partner organisations. But it’s also a business. “It’s important for us also to take on additional commercial work as a balance to offset some of the grant-funded work that we’re doing,” he says.

“We’re in an interesting position in that we work with both academics and industry and, theoretically at least, provide an interesting conduit through the innovation pipeline.

“At one end we’re working with universities to support some of the basic research on understanding a disease, while at the other end we’re helping to support the process of drug development. Then there are all the bits in between, so it’s very much a translational capability.”

Cox calls it a full-service proposition: Imanova works from the early stages of a project, right through to clinical applications. Given the sophistication of its proprietary technologies, Imanova employs people across a wide range of different scientific disciplines.

Know-how

While one important arm of its strategy is to work closely with the research groups within the colleges that set up the company, Imanova also has an internal research and development programme, where it develops technologies of its own, and takes a perhaps unorthodox approach to protecting them.

“IP is something that we’re constantly grappling with,” Cox says.

“There’s potential for IP to be created in the products we develop. We call them imaging biomarkers, or i-biomarkers. These are tool compounds that we use in our imaging studies to provide the information to our customers or collaborators.”

However, Cox says, Imanova has taken the strategic decision not to patent them. “Part of the mission we have, as defined by our partner organisations, is that we make a lot of those things available to the academic community of the UK and, in some cases, beyond."

Moreover, it’s unlikely, and probably almost impossible, to make money on imaging biomarkers in their own right, he adds.

"Our IP strategy is very much one of knowhow, rather than patenting per se.

"Because a lot of our studies take place in an academic context, even if we patent something then it would be available to anyone who wants to have access, and there’s not a lot we can do to stop other academics taking the molecule and doing their own thing with it.

"Indeed, that’s not what we’re here to do. We believe that one of the reasons imaging hasn’t been exploited to its fullest extent is because there’s been a lack of suitable tools to make it effective and applicable in understanding disease and drug development."

Instead, Cox seeks to encourage academic institutions to use the technologies, eventually creating a space for the company to grow into, and further develop its business.

"We call it a market driving strategy, where we are trying to create a market for future growth,” Cox explains.

When Imanova does decide to patent, it will be for relatively specialised technologies, but for now Cox feels that the area of imaging biomarker development is an opportunity for innovation.

"Because there is such a limited number of available tools, and because many pharmaceutical companies are developing them in-house, there is a poor use of resource in making these things or developing areas of unmet need.

"We believe it would be better if all proponents of the technology worked more closely together to avoid duplicating and wasting scarce and expensive resources."

Ultimately, Imanova’s goal is to create a consortium of organisations that use imaging biomarkers, so that their resources and knowledge can be pooled.

"I’m not convinced that we’ll ever get to the position of trying to ‘lock in’ certain approaches or technologies in that area,” Cox says.

"What I think is more likely is that it will become more open and therefore more people will use the technology."

Cox understands the pitfalls of patenting overzealously. “Universities are so fixed on patenting and protecting and then trying to get value out of that protection that sometimes they completely overvalue what knowledge they have, and it never gets exploited.

“In my view, you get the money only if you exploit the technology—not if you patent it. You can restrict the exploitation if your patenting strategy is too rigorous.”

Imaging biomarkers simply don’t have the same earning potential as pharmaceuticals, at least not yet. Where pharmaceutical companies will patent a molecule in many different ways, because they know they’ll get some value, imaging biomarkers are different.

“There is no incentive to build that IP protection, because you’ll never get the returns on it,” says Cox.

Forging ahead

To stay ahead in its field, Imanova is looking to make a big leap with its imaging technologies. “We’re investing in something that will not just be incremental but will be a major shift in the way the technology is developed and can be applied,” Cox says.

Along with a group of collaborators, Imanova is developing a PET scanner that images the entire human body, and its organs, right down to a molecular level—something that’s never been done before.

“PET technology has been around for about 25 years, but hasn’t been exploited to its full potential, and that’s part of our role.

“This new development will be a step change over and above the existing technologies, if we can get the funding for it,” Cox says.

Amid hopes that the new MedCity (see below) will attract a surge of investment in life sciences, that big step may happen sooner than previously imagined.

MedCity and collaborations

On April 8, London mayor Boris Johnson cut the ribbon on MedCity, an initiative of his office combined with King’s College London, Imperial College London and University College London aimed at boosting the life sciences industry in the UK’s south east, at Imanova’s base on Imperial College London’s campus in Hammersmith.

Cox predicts that if MedCity pulls together the universities’ capabilities, then the so-called ‘golden triangle’ life sciences cluster of Oxford, Cambridge and London can start to compete with the likes of the US clusters in Boston and on the west coast.

“London is a powerhouse already,” Cox says. “One of the drawbacks over the years has been that the individual components, whether they are academic or commercial, haven’t been pulling together in a coherent sense.

“MedCity will create a much more cohesive ecosystem, where all the components are available in a relatively small geographic area, and should be attractive for organisations wishing to invest in centres such as London.”

“If that is one thing that MedCity helps to achieve, then it’s moving us in the right direction.”