There is a science park lab next to the University of York that has two clusters of robots moving plates with mechanical arms. Teams of human scientists usually take several days to complete work done by the machines.
The lab is run by a small firm that is quietly carving out a leading position in the development of technology. aptamers are fragments of DNA that are used to diagnose illnesses or to deliver drugs to fight a range of diseases.
On our lab tour, Dr David Bunka, the company's chief technical officer, explained that an aptamer is a short synthetic piece of DNA orRNA that folds into three-dimensional shapes. To fit is what the Latin word for that means.
The aptamers are tested in hi-tech labs to see how well they bind to cellular targets. The best binders are trimmed and checked by the quality control team before they are put into tubes for packing and shipping.
Three-quarters of the world's top 20 pharmaceutical companies are clients of the business. It is working with the UK's top drugs firm and Cancer Research UK to develop aptamers for the treatment of chronic myelomonocytic leukaemia, a rare type of blood cancer.
A flotation on London's junior Aim market last year turned the two founding fathers of the company into millionaires. The company is growing fast. It has just moved into a new headquarters in the York science park that has doubled its lab space but is struggling to recruit more scientists because of a lack of affordable housing in York.
A test that can detect Covid-19 in wastewater with the environmental technology group Deepverge has been developed by the group. Last year, it dropped a partnership with Mologic to develop a rapid Covid test because it realized the market was saturated.
Bunka, a geneticist, and Dr Arron Tolley, a bricklayer, founded the business in 2008 and later finished their degrees. They formed a friendship after meeting at a university.
It is possible to deliver drugs to cancer cells with no binding to healthy cells with the help of aptamers.
If an animal is injected with a target of interest such as a virus, the immune response will be triggered. Synthetic DNA technology is used to produce aptamers.
Bunka says that the key principles of aptamer selection are taking a library of aptamers, incubating them with the target molecule, and differentiating the aptamers that stick from those that don't.
The longer shelf life of aptamers is due to the fact that they can be kept in the fridge.
One of the ethical advantages of aptamers is that they are synthesised artificially and you don't have to go through it.
They are more robust and easy to handle than antibodies. It's easy to label them. Adding fluorescent tags to them will make them easier to detect.
Also, aptamers are more effective than other methods. According to internal data, the synthetic antibodies of the Aptamer Group have a 70% success rate.
It typically takes 10 to 12 weeks to develop aptamers, but the firm is able to do so in 15 days.
According to the market research firm Fact. MR, the global aptamer market was worth over $2 billion last year and is expected to bring in over $11 billion by the end of the decade.
aptamers are one of the key players in the field of nucleic acid technology. The UK has always excelled in science. We are a world leader in the area of aptamers.
More than 60 people are employed by the group, including 35 scientists. The company has a new three-storey building that can hold up to 100 people but it is struggling to find staff.
The chief operations officer says the biggest challenge is recruiting. Basic scientists are hard to hire. We have also been affected by the effects of the UK's decision to leave the EU. More Europeans are usually expected. The departure of Britain from the EU has resulted in longer waiting times for work visas.
York has a shortage of affordable housing and property prices have risen 9% in the past year. The average asking price in York is more than four times that of the average asking rent. Many of the scientists in the group are from universities.
Described by Tolley as a "true bootstrap company", it managed to grow on £5m of funding until its stock market debut last year.
The only option for a company of its size was Aim in London. There are more funding opportunities in the US. He says it's not a cheap industry to be in.
According to a House of Commons science and technology committee report, there is avalley of death that prevents the progress of science from the lab bench to a commercially successful product.
The shares have fallen about 50% since the IPO due to the macro backdrop and poor sentiment for growth. Aptamer has delivered against its IPO mandate to scale the business.
Bunka and the rest of the management team have been locked in their shares for a year, and they have no intention of selling them.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
