Redx moves HQ to Alderley Park

DRUG development company Redx Pharma is moving its headquarters from Liverpool to Alderley Park in Cheshire.

The move will see the company’s Oncology business join Redx Anti-Infectives and Redx Immunology, which are already based at Alderley Park, and double the laboratory and office space it has at Alderley to 74,000 sq ft.

Redx Oncology, which develops anti-cancer drugs, is currently based within the Royal Liverpool Hospital’s Duncan Building, which is due to be demolished in 2017.

The move will be completed by year-end and see all 193 Redx staff operate on the same site for the first time, with all 88 Liverpool-based job roles relocating.

Neil Murray, chief executive of Redx Pharma, said there were obvious benefits to bringing the three subsidiaries together in one location.

He told TheBusinessDesk: “It means the cancer and oncology divisions will be sharing the same building. There is a lot of overlap between what they do, which means that having them housed together is a big bonus.”

He added: “Bringing our three teams together will support our ambitious growth plans and give the business some valuable human, scientific and logistical synergies.

“The site has a great history as a global leader in cancer research and we look forward to adding Redx drugs to the roll call of successful cancer therapies that ICI and AstraZeneca produced over the years.”

Redx Pharma made substantial efforts to find suitable premises in Liverpool, according to Murray.

He said: “We have always had the infection business based at Alderley Park as when we set it up in 2013 there was not anywhere suitable in Liverpool.

“We did try to identify an alternative in Liverpool [for Oncology] – the Duncan Building was always a temporary solution. We commissioned a property consultancy to do a full search of the available options in Liverpool and we simply could not find somewhere that already existed or was planned to be built that had the right level of security around it.”

Murray added that the business has had a “tremendous” amount of support and encouragement in Liverpool and will continue to maintain close links to the city.

One of the company’s projects, developing a new antibiotic designed to tackle MRSA, is part of a commercial partnership with The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust.

Murray said: “Our collaboration has the potential to create a drug that is a member of the first new class of antibiotics to emerge in a generation – critical in the global fight against antibiotic resistance.

“We will also remain active supporters of the Liverpool Life Sciences University Technical College and continue our active collaborations with the Liverpool Tissue Bank and the University of Liverpool.”

The company listed on AIM in March 2015, raising £15m and last month it sucessfully raised another £10m through a further share placing to support its development pipeline.

Redx Pharma’s lead programme Porcupine, for the treatment of pancreatic cancer, is expected to be in first-in-human clinical trials this time next year.

“The pipeline has advanced significantly in the last 12 months – far more than I thought it would have by now. That’s a testament to the team,” said Murray.