OBN Awards 2021 – Finalists Announced
Hello

We are pleased to announce details of the companies that have been shortlisted to the final round of the 13th Annual OBN Awards, the most coveted awards event in UK life sciences.    
 
The number and quality of entries was incredibly strong again this year, and the first-round judges were impressed by the quality and innovation presented. 
 
The final judging process will now commence, with the winners announced live and in-person at the OBN Awards on Thursday 25 November at The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
 
If you would like to join us on the night to celebrate the finalists and winners, we have a limited number of tickets currently available – click below to book.   
Please do contact events@obn.org.uk if you would like more information.
Congratulations to the OBN Awards 2021 Finalists:

Best Start-up Biotech Company, Kindly sponsored by Thermo Fisher Scientific
  • SENISCA is a biotech spinout company from the University of Exeter, founded in 2020 and dedicated to the development of new approaches to reverse cellular senescence (senotherapeutics)
  • Novai is commercialising DARC Technology, a combination of a patented biologic with a state-of-the-art AI algorithm, to form a novel biomarker which has applications in diagnosis of a variety of eye diseases
  • SWITCHRx exploits nanotechnology to treat solid cancers using "SIX-IO" - a universal, safe, synthetic bio-mimetic that switches immune cells in the cancer directly to "cancer killer" cells
Best Emerging Biotech Company, Kindly sponsored by LifeSci Advisors
  • Quell Therapeutics aims to bring transformational and valued therapies for a range of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, as well as preventing rejection in organ transplantation, based on modular engineered Tregs
  • Vaccitech develops immunotherapies and vaccines for the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases and cancer. Vaccitech was listed on the NASDAQ in April 2021 and spun-out from the University of Oxford’s Jenner Institute in 2016
  • Artios Pharma are developing breakthrough cancer treatments that target DNA Damage Response (DDR) pathways to specifically destroy certain devastating cancers that are difficult to treat
  • Arctoris is an Oxford-headquartered drug discovery platform company that combines robotics and data science to accelerate the path from idea to the clinic, both in their internal pipeline and with biotech and pharma partners worldwide
Best Established Biotech Company, Kindly sponsored by Precision BioSearch
  • Crescendo Biologics is a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company, with a first-in-class lead programme and a pipeline of additional T cell enhancing therapeutics
  • Healx is a mission-driven technology company using frontier AI technology to accelerate the pace, increase the scale and improve the chance of success of rare disease treatment development
  • C4X Discovery is a pioneering Drug Discovery company combining scientific expertise with cutting-edge Drug Discovery technologies to efficiently deliver world leading medicines, which are developed by our partners for the benefit of patients
Best Start-up Medtech Company, Kindly sponsored by Penningtons Manches Cooper
  • Cerca Magnetics have developed and brought to market the world’s first commercial, fully integrated brain imaging device based on optically-pumped magnetometers (OPMs)
  • Koalaa offer comfortable, easy-to-fit, affordable prosthetic arms for kids and adults - a below elbow soft-prosthetic (The ALX) and a soft-prosthetic for partial hands and fingers (The Paww)
  • Charco Neurotech is a medtech start-up working on a system for people with Parkinson's to improve their quality of life
Best Emerging Medtech Company 
  • Ultromics is a global health technology firm which provides autonomous echocardiography analysis through innovative AI solutions
  • PredictImmune is a global biotechnology company which guides personalised treatment of patients with immune-mediated diseases
  • Kinomica is a pioneering precision medicine research and diagnostics company specialising in cell signalling
Best Established Medtech Company Kindly sponsored by Milton Park
  • Inivata is a leader in liquid biopsy. Its InVision® platform unlocks essential genomic information from a simple blood draw to guide and personalize cancer treatment, monitor response and detect relapse
  • Lightpoint Medical develops and markets innovative technologies for intra-operative cancer detection to improve the lives of people with cancer by transforming the efficacy of cancer surgery
  • Isansys is a world leading digital healthcare company which has developed a comprehensive, scalable and simple-to-use advanced patient monitoring platform - the Patient Status Engine
  • Yaqrit is a clinical stage life sciences company with a portfolio of therapies in advanced liver disease, one of the largest unmet needs in medicine
Most Transformative Digital Healthcare Company Kindly supported by Ipsen
  • GENinCode products combine genetic and clinical data to risk assess patients and provide healthcare practitioners with advanced clinical information to evaluate and predict the onset of cardiovascular disease.
  • Sensyne Health collaborates with life science companies and health systems to create a trusted data community, deriving insights from analysing large, complex data sets of anonymised and de-identified patient data. Sensyne’s mission is to help improve patient care, accelerate the discovery and development of new medicines and improve their collective understanding of diseases and treatment
  • Hertility Health are the only company in the world that offers tailored and comprehensive hormone testing, whilst also providing in-house experts in reproductive medicine, fertility, PCOS, endometriosis and gynaecology
Best CRO 
  • Precision for Medicine is an oncology specialty CRO that provides clinical research services and application of metrics-driven project management to optimise oncology drug development
  • High Force Research is a chemical research and development company working across the life sciences with established industry leaders, discovery groups, start-ups and academic spinouts, specialising in the quality driven synthesis and development of new materials and supporting innovation through to commercialisation
  • Seda Pharmaceutical Development Services provide integrated Pharmaceutical Development and Clinical Pharmacology services and consultancy to the Pharma and Biotechnology Industry enabling the rapid and efficient development of optimal medicinal products by providing coherent and synergistic support
  • Cellomatics Biosciences is a laboratory-based CRO which specialises in oncology, immuno-oncology, immunology, inflammation and respiratory therapeutic areas offering bespoke and innovative preclinical in vitro assay services to biotechs, pharma companies and academic groups
Most Impactful Business Support Organisation
  • The Milner Therapeutics Institute encompasses both a research institute and a global outreach programme, which aims to transform pioneering science into therapies.
  • First Create The Media is an award-winning communications strategy and content agency for the life sciences who work with organisations from startups to global companies to share their ideas and stories with the audiences that matter
  • FOCUS Oxford Risk Management deliver specialist insurance and risk management advice to businesses across the UK. They are experts in solving the unique & complex needs of companies operating in the life science and technology sectors, acting as the trusted adviser to start-ups & spin-outs to large organisations with a global presence
The BioSeed 'One to Watch' Award, Kindly sponsored by Precision for Medicine
  • Presymptom Health is a pioneering medtech company that creates diagnostic tests to detect illnesses earlier to help save lives.
  • Sonrai Analytics' AI data discovery platform enables Biotech, Pharma and CROs to identify high-value drug targets and biomarkers, validate state-of-the-art algorithms and get new products to the market much faster
  • Ochre Bio is developing a portfolio of RNA therapies for chronic liver diseases. They apply functional genomics to donor livers maintained ex vivo, to find better targets and ultimately turn them into better medicines for liver disease patients
The Most Impactful UK Deal
  • Oxford Biomedica’s key role in the manufacturing of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine saw the production of the vaccine achieved at unprecedented scale and pace, creating a manufacturing capacity in a matter of less than three months when this would normally take years
  • Horizon Discovery, a cell engineering company focused on using gene editing and gene modulating tools to accelerate drug development and scientific innovation was acquired by scientific technology innovator and leader PerkinElmer Inc, in December 2020 for approximately £296m ($383m)
  • Charnwood Molecular acquired Aurelia Bioscience, a pre-clinical biology CRO in June 2021 which has allowed Charnwood Molecular to offer integrated drug discovery services to pharmaceutical, biotech and chemistry clients

Please note: The winner of the ‘Special Recognition Award’, Sponsored by OBN, will be announced on the night of the OBN Awards on 25 November.
Congratulations to all our finalists - we look forward to celebrating with you.

Best wishes
The OBN team