CEO blog: UK biotech momentum, ministerial moves and global opportunities
Chris Molloy
CEO, BIA
Dear colleagues,
The week in UK biotech starts warm and energetic.
The traffic is flowing and so are fundraising deals and regulatory metrics, enabling our companies to pass vital milestones with pace and purpose.
Firstly, it is important to mark the passing of Professor Mike Hoare, whose his decades-long impact on bioprocessing and biochemical engineering leaves a legacy through the science and the many people he influenced.
Congratulations to the team at BIA member RedX for their deal with Skye Bioscience, raising $125 million and propelling the company to Phase 2 in fibrosis, and to BIA member Stablepharma who made headline news with their breakthrough ‘fridge-free vaccine’ technology.
Another important shoutout to the team at the MHRA, whose quarterly performance numbers were published on Friday, showing continued strong, enabling performance for UK companies. This compound effect of deal flow and enabling regulation is steady progress towards a revived and confident community right across the nation.
On that note, I had a great visit to Birmingham last week – highlighting a high concentration of university excellence, clinical capability, facilities and scale-ready HealthTech, including BIA members PHTA and Nonacus. I look forward to spending much of this week in Scotland to engage with members and talk clinical trials.
In this update:
- Remembering Mike Hoare
- RedX-Skye deal
- Stablepharma’s fridge-free vaccine milestone
- MHRA quarterly numbers
- New ministerial responsibilities for UK life sciences
- Backing human biology-based models
Remembering Mike Hoare’s impact on UK biochemical engineering
Professor Mike Hoare’s career helped shape modern biochemical engineering and the UK’s strength in bioprocessing.
Over almost five decades at UCL, Mike played a defining role in building one of the world’s leading centres for biochemical engineering.
As inaugural Head of Department from 1998, he also helped establish flagship programmes and partnerships that continue to underpin the UK’s reputation for industrially relevant, world-class bioprocessing research and training. Many across our community will know his influence through the students, researchers and industrial collaborators he supported.
Mike will be remembered not only for scientific excellence, but for generosity, humility and a deep commitment to helping others succeed. On behalf of BIA, we send our condolences to his family.
Alderley Park company sets out path to Phase 2 through Redx-Skye deal
Congratulations to the team at BIA member Redx, based at Alderley Park, on a significant transaction with Skye Bioscience that gives the company a route back to the public markets through Nasdaq as Fibrx Therapeutics. The deal brings together a fibrosis-focused pipeline, Redx’s management team and $125 million of committed financing to propel the company into Phase 2.
UK science is still creating assets that can command international capital and specialist leadership. Redx’s lead programme, RXC008, is a GI-restricted pan-ROCK inhibitor for fibrostenotic Crohn’s disease with an open US IND and FDA Fast Track designation, with the financing expected to fund the programme through topline data in the second half of 2028.
Stablepharma shows how fridge-free vaccines could cut global wastage
Congratulations to BIA member Stablepharma, whose fridge-free tetanus-diphtheria vaccine has been successfully trialled in people for the first time. It is a striking example of UK innovation taking aim at a problem hiding in plain sight: the cold chain.
Most vaccines must be kept refrigerated or frozen from manufacture through to delivery. When that chain breaks, doses can be lost.
Stablepharma’s approach converted a liquid vaccine into a dry-powder version, stored at room temperature before being mixed with water and injected.
The next stage will be another important watchpoint, with a larger trial expected. This is the kind of platform innovation that can look modest on the bench but, if it scales, can change the practical reality of healthcare delivery.
MHRA performance figures show timely regulatory delivery
The latest MHRA quarterly dashboard gives members useful hard numbers behind the enabling regulator story. In Q1 2026-27: national medicine licence applications were delivered on time at 100%; vaccines and blood products were certified on time at 100%; and decisions on manufacturing and distribution authorisations were made on time at 98%.
Additionally, the regulator assessed 96% of clinical trials and investigations on time in Q1, with the media time for clinical trial initial authorisations at 29 days. MHRA also reported 91% customer satisfaction with its scientific advice service.
The overall picture is of a regulator continuing to deliver timely decisions in the part of the system that most directly affects whether innovative medicines can move into UK trials. But progress should not blunt the bigger message: clinical trial recruitment still needs to accelerate. Read Julian Beach’s letter for an overview.
Life sciences ministerial roles take shape
We are watching the new ministerial landscape closely. Chris McDonald has now been named Minister for Science, Innovation and Investment, with a joint role across the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade and the Department of Health and Social Care. James Frith has also been appointed Minister for Health Innovation, with responsibilities including life sciences.
That cross-government alignment matters – biotech is the business of science. We will share a member-exclusive briefing this week on the issues that matter most to members.
UK backs non-animal testing with Cambridge Pre-clinical Translational Models Hub
The Government has announced a £22 million package to accelerate the UK’s move towards alternatives to animal testing in science, including a £20 million Pre-clinical Translational Models Hub led by Cambridge.
The Hub will use human tissue models, organoids, stem cell-derived systems and AI to improve how potential medicines are tested before they reach patients.
This is exactly the kind of capability the UK should be building: serious science, linked to hospitals, research institutes and industry, with clear potential to strengthen both patient benefit and economic growth.
