London, 15th January 2020 – Biotech LIfT BioSciences today announced a further major investment into the company in its mission to develop the first curative and affordable cell therapy for all solid tumours. The investors included Jonathan Milner, a leading biotech ‘super-angel’ investor and earlier stage investor in LIfT, Kizoo Technology Ventures, a leading early-stage investor in breakthrough technologies, and Downing Ventures, a leading London-based investor.
“LIfT have developed and patented the most promising cancer therapy I have come across to date, with huge potential to transform the lives of cancer patients with a diverse range of solid tumours. I am excited about being a part of the LIfT journey to bring this exciting technology to market and to start saving lives” said Jonathan Milner.
“We are very proud to support LIfT's game-changing platform that breaks with the old-fashioned single-target approach and welcome Downing Ventures as a new investor," said Patrick Burgermeister, Partner of Kizoo.
“Downing is happy to be supporting the exciting and novel therapeutic treatment that LIfT is developing. This technology has the capability to make a fundamental increase in the options available in cancer treatment” said Will Brooks, Investment Director at Downing Ventures.
The company’s first product, N-LIfT (Neutrophil Only Leukocyte Infusion Therapy), works by effectively transferring the innate immunity that some exceptional people naturally have in their blood to cancer patients. The treatment is expected to give cancer patients up to 20 times the cancer killing ability they had been exhibiting themselves.
“Rapidly dividing cancer cells are able to adapt whereas targeted therapies are not,” says Alex Blyth, CEO of LIfT BioSciences. “This is a major flaw with current treatment options for patients, as their cancers are often only temporarily slowed before mutating and returning aggressively. Until now the only other approach has been broad chemotherapies that are essentially only slightly more toxic to cancer cells than healthy cells. Whereas N-LIfT is a smart living therapy that selectively destroys any cancer cell we throw at it, regardless of type, mutational status or whether they are hot or cold tumours. N-LIfT also has the potential to improve the performance of other therapies that struggle with solid tumours and cold (non-inflamed) tumour environments. We believe that N-LIfT has the potential to be a paradigm-shifting change in how we treat cancer.”
The investment will help LIfT BioSciences further develop its manufacturing technology to cost-effectively produce N-LIfT, and fund pre-clinical in-vivo work. LIfT BioSciences is looking to demonstrate in-vivo superiority over standard of care in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC), Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) and Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC). Additional venture capital and private family wealth funds are being invited to join the investment syndicate, to fund early clinical trials and manufacturing scale-up.
About LIfT BioSciences:
LIfT Biosciences is a Biotech bringing to market a 1st in class allogeneic innate cell therapy called Neutrophil Only Leukocyte Infusion Therapy (N-LIfT). N-LIfT has the game-changing potential to destroy all solid tumours irrespective of mutation or strain. N-LIfT uses a special type of N1a neutrophil with special cancer killing and immune recruitment capabilities. Our vision is to develop the world’s first cell bank of mass produced ‘cancer killing neutrophils’ to deliver a portfolio of immuno-oncology cell therapies for delivering complete remission in all solid tumours. LIfT BioSciences was founded by Alex Blyth following the death of his mother to pancreatic cancer. See www.liftbiosciences.com.
About Kizoo:
Kizoo provides mentoring and seed and early-stage financing with a focus on rejuvenation biotechnology. Having been entrepreneurs, VCs, and mentors in both high-growth tech and biotech companies for many years, with multiple exits and massive value created for the founders, Kizoo now brings this experience to the emerging field of rejuvenation biotech – a young industry that will eventually become much bigger than today’s largest technology markets.
As part of the Forever Healthy Group, Kizoo directly supports the creation of startups turning research on the root causes of aging into therapies and services for human application. Investments include AgeX, FoxBio, Turn.bio, Elevian, Oisin Biotechnologies, Underdog Pharmaceuticals, MAIA Biotechnology, and others. Forever Healthy’s other initiatives include the evaluation of new rejuvenation therapies, evidence-based curation of the world’s cutting-edge medical knowledge, funding research projects on the root causes of aging, and hosting the annual Undoing Aging Conference. For more information, please visit kizoo.com and forever-healthy.org.
About Jonathan Milner:
Jonathan, co-Founder and currently Deputy Chairman of Abcam plc, is an entrepreneur and investor and is passionate about supporting UK life science and high-tech start-ups. He has provided investment and support to over 40 companies and has assisted three technology companies to IPO on the London AIM Stock exchange.
About Downing Ventures:
Downing Ventures invests in UK-based businesses at Seed to Series A and beyond, providing entrepreneurs access to a ladder of funding. Downing Ventures has backed 66 ambitious businesses (as at January 2020) across a variety of technology sectors including healthcare technology, online marketplaces and enterprise software.
Forward looking statements:
This press release contains forward-looking statements which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. LIfT BioSciences does not expect to update forward-looking statements continually as conditions change.
