Cardiff spinout developing new cell & gene therapies

Cardiff University spinout Broken String Biosciences is a genomics company with the goal of developing safer cell and gene therapies by assessing the stability of the genome. It is building a technology platform that accelerates the characterisation of novel genome editing technologies. This will unlock the next wave of cell & gene therapies. that are safer, more efficient, and affordable for patients.

Broken String Biosciences completed a six-month residency at the Illumina Accelerator in Cambridge in 2021 and raised Series Seed financing of c.£3m the same year. Attracting investors from the UK, Germany and the United States with strong links to academic and industrial collaborators, the company has subsequently doubled in size.

The company is now headquartered at the BioData Innovation Centre, Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridge, and has established a wet-lab facility at nearby Chesterford Research Park. 

Related case studies

Leading the world with genome sequencing

Genome sequencing technology developed at Cambridge has generated an annual turnover of over £750 million from an initial public investment in basic research of only £274,196. This means that for every £1 of public investment, the research now delivers £2,735 every year, even without counting the wider economic and social benefits.

Read more >

University of Exeter – using AI to assess climate risk

The Joint Centre for Excellence in Environmental Intelligence (JCEEI) utilises AI to address climate and biodiversity change by interrogating multiple sources of data. It is working with a city council on how to make buildings safe during heatwaves, and collaborating with The Alan Turing Institute, energy futures lab at Imperial College London and the Universities of Edinburgh and Warwick on decision-making approaches for energy security and net zero.

Read more >