Redx raises £6m and takes new division to AZ’s Alderley Park site

FAST growing North West drug discovery and development company Redx Pharma is to open a new research and development facility at AstraZeneca’s Alderley Park site in Cheshire.

The new venture, Redx Anti-Infectives, will create 119 high value science jobs at the site, establishing a new team to develop drugs combatting resistance to antibiotics and new medicines to tackle viral infections.

The move is a boost for the Cheshire economy which is still coming to terms with the news that Astra Zeneca is moving its R&D from Alderley Park to Cambridgeshire over the next two years, and with it nearly 2,000 high-value jobs.

The expansion by Liverpool-based company comes after it raised £6m in a new fundraising round led by Manchester-based Acceleris Corporate Finance.

A focus of the new business will be hard-to-treat infections. These include the growing threat of drug resistant superbugs like MRSA, as well as conditions such as influenza, Hepatitis C and HIV.

A further 28 specialist jobs are expected to be created within the wider supply chain.  

Redx Anti-Infectives begins operations at the end of April 2013 supported by a grant of £4.7m from the UK Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF).  

Dr Neil Murray, chief executive of Redx Pharma, said: “While our headquarters remain in Liverpool and we have ambitious plans to grow our business and create high value science posts in the city, at the same time we recognise that the facilities at Alderley Park are world class and enable us to move quickly in expanding this key new part of our business.

“We will be working closely with our colleagues at AstraZeneca, who made a compelling commercial case to attract us to Alderley Park.   We look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration.”

Dr Murray said he hoped Redx investment in creating jobs at the Cheshire site would help mitigate in a “small way” the gloom around AstraZeneca’s recent decision to move its research and development function to Cambridge over the next two years.”

He added: “Redx is a discovery engine for global pharma and it is innovative and agile companies like ours that can help the industry adapt to a new model of research and development where there is more willingness to outsource some of the challenges involved in creating new proprietary medicines. At Redx, our methods have already uncovered commercial potential that might otherwise have been missed and our approach helps partners to bring new medicines to market faster.”

Redx Anti-Infectives is the third business which has been created by the Redx Pharma group, which was founded in 2010.  It follows Redx Oncology, which is also based in Liverpool, and Redx Crop Protection, which operates from Frome, Somerset.   

Redx has previously won RGF backing for the launch of its first spin out, Redx Oncology , a cancer drug research and development subsidiary which currently employs 111 people in Liverpool.

Commenting on the fund-raising, which will be used to support the growth of the Redx group, Norman Molyneux, chief executive of Acceleris said: “There was strong interest from existing and new investors in Redx. The company has an exceptional leadership and exciting growth prospects.”

Clive Morris, AstraZeneca’s vice president, research & development said: “We are delighted to welcome Redx to Alderley Park, which is an important first step in our ambition to secure a sustainable future for the site.

“We will continue to seek further opportunities to attract other innovation-driven companies and, wherever possible, build on the existing bioscience expertise and world class facilities available at Alderley Park.”

Nottingham-based BioCity has been appointed by AstraZeneca to open the BioHub at Alderley Park. As well as the new Redx spin-out, Blueberry Therapeutics and Imagen Biotech will be locating at the new facility.