Thinking globally and creating a strong biotech ecosystem in Scotland, guest post by Clare Wareing, Founder and CEO of Cumulus Oncology

It was good to read about ClinSpec Diagnostics’ latest investment recently, along with some positive news on Scottish biotech spinouts Pheno Therapeutics and Amphista Therapeutics earlier this year.

Like ClinSpec, Cumulus Oncology has benefited from investment by St Andrews-based investment firm EOS Advisory. EOS has a similar philosophy to ourselves and understand the impact that investment can have when ambitions are aligned.

We founded Cumulus in 2017 to create spin-out companies that will work to develop anti-cancer therapies. We aim to fast-track treatments into clinical trials for cancer types that don’t respond well to existing options.

While our business model is well developed in the US, we are leading the way in Europe. Having spent three years carefully curating a high-calibre team and building a portfolio of oncology asset-centric spin-out companies, we are now poised to scale the business and are excited about doing this from a base in Edinburgh.

Specialist life science venture capital (VC) investors really see the value of the European biotech sector where year-on-year increases in venture financing led to record investment levels of $3.3bn in 2019.

Back in 2012, my clinical research organisation (CRO) Nexus Oncology was acquired by the larger US CRO Ockham after I had spent a decade building the company to a headcount of over 120 and revenues of almost £10 million. This time around, we want to focus on therapeutics rather than services and create something that is both highly valuable and scalable. We want to be one of the next big success stories on the Scottish biotech scene, creating a sustainable business for the future.

Last week, we demonstrated our intentions by co-founding our latest biotech spin-out, Modulus Oncology alongside a first rate scientific team from the University of Sheffield. Modulus plans to fast track its lead asset into clinical development within two years. Myself and Cumulus co-founder and chair Alan Wise have joined Modulus’s leadership team in line with our modus operandi at Cumulus.

Next month, we will be announcing the appointment of a number of high profile industry figures to our advisory board and we plan to hire more people into our team over the next 12 months. We are fortunate to have a number of world-class universities on our doorstep and this will help us to grow critical mass for the sector here.

The life sciences ecosystem in Scotland is a very supportive one with access to grant funding for early stage companies as well as co-funding opportunities. This has helped create some of the impressive exits we have seen in recent years. The entrepreneurs who have been there and done it foster the next wave of new companies and create a strong biotech ecosystem for Scotland.

Scotland has an excellent base of early stage investors but for the larger investment rounds needed to scale biotech companies, particularly as they reach the clinical stage of testing, we have to look to larger VC funds in London and Europe - though Epidarex Capital, with offices in Edinburgh as well as the US, is a notable exception.

Working in the biopharmaceutical sector has taught me that you always need to think globally and, in a science-based industry sector, you need to base decisions on robust data. A strong understanding of market potential, a clear picture of the opportunity to improve patient outcomes and last, but not least, creating value for stakeholders are all key factors in the biotech sector.

For me, the most important lessons learned from scaling a life sciences service company include: always working with people you respect; listening well and learning from those that have done it before; never losing sight of your purpose and acknowledging that you need different skill sets at different stages of growth so be sure to bring in the right people at the right time to scale the business. Most of all though, love what you do, as passion and drive are the key to seeing you through difficult times.

While Covid has not impacted Cumulus in any significant way, it has been detrimental to the cancer research sector in general; cancer charities have lost income and recruitment into clinical trials faltered. So the sooner we can return to pre-Covid activity the better it will be for all in the cancer research community.

An edited version of this blog ran as an op-ed in The Scotsman on Monday 21st September 2020