THE UK's pharmaceutical industry has been given a boost with drug development firm Auralis winning funding of £1.5 million to help it launch new products in the next two years.
The Royal Bank of Scotland has agreed to back the firm founded in 2005 by entrepreneurs Andy Sneddon and Simon Bryson. The Cheshire-based firm specialises in the development of niche, non-brand pharmaceuticals for which there is a critical need. It currently supplies an opiate pain relief injection to a number of NHS trusts, for both primary care and hospital use, and nearly half of all retail pharmacies across the UK. The funding that has been secured allows Auralis to grow through the development of products, focusing on the paediatrics market, and to extend its reach into continental Europe.
Sneddon expects the additional finance, two-thirds of which was provided by RBS through the UK Government's Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme, to lead to additional revenue for the business within 12 months. The firm has a track record in taking commercial products from conception to commercialisation.
Sneddon and Bryson recently signed up Clive Dix as non-executive chairman of Auralis. Dix is a former chief executive of Oxford-based vaccines company PowderMed and is the current chairman of the UK BioIndustry Association. Sneddon says: "Our business is sustainable as it stands but we are very ambitious and believe we have a great opportunity to develop and provide more products that will make a significant difference to patients – particularly young children – with a range of medical conditions."
Ken Brown, director of healthcare at RBS business and commercial banking, Scotland, said: "The business already has strong revenue streams underpinned by long-term supply contracts, and it now has the capital necessary to develop much needed products."
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