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Seed & Early Stage

We have a long track record of seed and early stage investing in innovation, building young biotech companies with more than just capital.

Along with our investment, we’ll pitch in to help with some of the key challenges that come with building a young biotech company. Like negotiating key academic licenses. Defining the science and business strategy. Finding and attracting a top-calibre senior management team. We’ll even help incubate the company on our offices.

Case Studies

GammaDelta

London-based GammaDelta was created by Abingworth in 2016 to build on pioneering research by Professor Adrian Hayday to develop γδ T cells for immunotherapy. The following year, the company formed an alliance with Takeda Pharmaceuticals under which Takeda provided substantial R&D funding in return for an option to acquire GammaDelta. Takeda exercised this option in 2021, thereby obtaining GammaDelta’s blood and tissue-derived platforms for allogeneic variable delta 1 (Vδ1) gamma-delta (γδ) T cell therapies, in addition to early-stage cell therapy programs.

Abingworth Role

  • Sole VC investor since creating the company with seed funding in 2016
  • Incubated the company at our offices, helped negotiate alliance with Takeda
  • Recruited key members of the leadership team: CEO, CSO, CBO
Myricx

London-based Myricx Bio was founded in 2019 to discover and develop novel payloads for antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). Its first-in-class N-myristoyltransferase inhibitor (NMTi) payloads were designed to address resistance to current therapies and have the potential to be effective against multiple solid tumours. By July 2026, Myricx advanced two NMTi-ADC programs to late preclinical development when Novartis announced its intent to acquire the company for up to $1.5 billion in an all-cash transaction, including $1.1 billion upfront.

Abingworth Role

  • Co-led £90M Series A in mid-2024
  • Served as an active board member, shaping product, business development, and financing strategy
  • Helped recruit key members of the leadership team, including the CEO
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other strategies

Development Stage

We also understand the different challenges faced by later-stage companies, both public and private, as their programs move through the clinic to market. Our Development Stage strategy is focused on these later-stage companies.

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Clinical Co-Development

We have pioneered a new approach to partnering with pharmaceutical and biotech companies to help them develop effective new drugs and deliver them to patients in an accelerated manner.

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