‘Excellent year’ as Fusion taps into university IP
FUSION IP is to focus on growing its existing portfolio of promising start-ups as it maintains its stance that university research offers the technology to drive UK plc.
The Sheffield-based company, an AIM-listed business that invests in turning university research into viable businesses, was upbeat as it reported its annual results today despite seeing revenue and portfolio returns and profits drop.
Revenue and portfolio returns were down to £4.8m from £5.9m for the year ended July 31, while profit, excluding subsidiary spin-out costs and amortisation, was reduced to £3m from £4.2m the previous year.
Chairman Doug Liversidge described the performance as “another excellent year for the company” as it achieved its first company exit with Simcyp, raised new funds and the value of its investments to £19.8m over the period.
One company described as a ‘rising star’ by Fusion is Ansynth, a Sheffield-based vaccines and therapeutic antibody company, which aims to prevent and treat bacterial infections.
Fusion was established in 2002 and has long-term exclusive agreements with University of Sheffield and Cardiff University, giving it exclusive access to all the IP generated by their research departments.
Mr Liversidge said: “We believe the future of UK plc lies in technology and that much of this new potential technology lies in the UK’s leading research universities.
“Our exclusive IP commercialisation agreements with Sheffield and Cardiff Universities give us long-term, exclusive rights to commercialise the world-class research being generated by these two leading universities.
“Our role is to bring that technology to market and our unique partnership model enables us to identify innovative research that has the potential to be a high value business that will benefit our shareholders, the university and UK plc.”
Chief executive David Baynes said Fusion’s priority was to continue to focus on the development of its portfolio companies in the year ahead but he did not rule out the creation of a number of new spinouts.
