Spin-out Companies
The School of Chemistry promotes and assists with the formation of spin-out companies around key areas of technology expertise, leading to the formation of sustainable businesses which contribute to the economic activity of the region and the UK as a whole.
We also help companies looking to "spin-in" - SMEs which are interested in relocating to the University or the surrounding area to take advantage of our technical and commercial skills, office and lab resources and experience. The University has incubator facilities available at BioCity and the University of Nottingham Innovation Park.
Based on groundbreaking research by Prof Steve Howdle, Critical Pharmaceuticals uses its supercritical fluid technologies to formulate drugs and drug candidates within biodegradable polymers for controlled release applications. The first spin out company based on the School of Chemistry's research, Critical Pharmaceuticals has won numerous awards for innovation. Until recently the company was driven forwards by a former member of the Business Partnership Unit, Dr. Martin Whitaker, whose technical and commercial work led to the inception of the company during his Business Science Fellowship tenure.
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A collaboration between Prof. Mike George in Chemistry, Dr. Barrie Kellam in Pharmacy and Prof. Steve Hill from the Institute of Cell Signalling led to the development of luminescence technology used in the drug discovery industry. This technology now forms the basis of the School of Chemistry spinout company, Cellaura Technologies. The company's unique technology, based on University-owned intellectual property in the field of fluorescently-labelled molecules, is in a strong position to capitalise on recent developments in the drug discovery industry, particularly with respect to high-throughput and high-content screening of drug candidates.
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A new spin-out company based on a collaboration between Prof. Martyn Poliakoff in the School of Chemistry and Dr Ed Lester from the School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. Promethean Particles uses ground-breaking supercritical water (scH2O) technology to produce nanoparticles with close control over their composition, size, shape, morphology and properties.
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QGenta Inc.
Qgenta is a spin-out company domiciled in Colorado, USA which has resulted from successful collaborative research between the Universities of Nottingham and the University of Colorado. A series of novel compounds developed by Prof. Chris Moody in the School of Chemistry at Nottingham and Prof David Ross and Dr David Siegel at Colorado have shown potential as the basis of future therapies for the treatment of solid tumours and in particular pancreatic cancers. Qgenta will provide a focus for rapid development and testing of these compounds and take them forward commercially.
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