Co-founder and CEO Dr Asel Sartbaeva began developing Ensilication technology in 2012.
Bristol-based biotech EnsiliTech has raised £4.5m in seed funding to “democratise access to therapeutics and biologicals by making them room-temperature stable”.
The oversubscribed round will be used to improve the way life-saving medicines are stored and transported globally, the company said.
The round was led by Eos Advisory and followed on by Calculus Capital with participation from Empirical Ventures, Fink Family Office, QantX, Angel Investors Bristol and HERmesa, among others.
EnsiliTech, or Ensilicated Technologies is a biotech company with a focus on enhancing the stability and accessibility of biopharmaceuticals. It spun out of the University of Bath in 2022.
According to EnsiliTech, biopharmaceuticals today rely on a decades-old ‘cold chain’ system, which is expensive and energy intensive. Cold chain failures are reported to cost the pharmaceutical industry an estimated £26bn annually, the company noted.
While in developing economics, the World Health Organization reports that up to 50pc of vaccines are wasted due to cold chain breakdowns.
As a solution, the company developed its patented Ensilication technology, which it claims preserves the integrity of vaccines, antibodies and other biopharmaceuticals, eliminating the need for a cold chain. This allows medicines to be stored and transported at temperatures up to 50 degrees Celsius.
This would allow life-saving medicines to be transported anywhere across the globe, including in places where access to reliable refrigeration can be a major barrier to healthcare.
“Using Ensilication, tiny layers of an inorganic material are applied to the biological material, rendering it stable outside the fridge or freezer,” EnsiliTech explained.
The technology utilises silica, which is the primary material in sand. The material is used to create an individual, tailored protective coat around the active ingredient. Silica is biocompatible, inert and cheap, the start-up noted.
“When the vaccine or other biological material is ready to be administered, the silica cage cracks open and falls away, leaving the active ingredient in its pure, fully functional form,” the company said.
The seed raise will be used to accelerate proof-of-concept uptake for existing and novel biopharmaceuticals by making new hires and enhancing infrastructure capabilities. It will also support the generation of key validation data required to integrate Ensilication into pharmaceutical manufacturing workflows.
The company was co-founded by Dr Asel Sartbaeva, Dr Stephen Wells, Dr Aswin Doekhie and Dr Matt Slade.
EnsiliTech has a woman CEO and majority female R&D teams, allowing the start-up to tap investment from HERmesa, which supports female-led businesses.
“Our mission is to ensure that life-saving medicines and vaccines reach everyone, everywhere, regardless of infrastructure or geography. By eliminating the need for refrigeration, our technology significantly reduces supply-chain costs and drug waste, while also lowering the environmental impact of pharmaceutical distribution,” said CEO Sartbaeva.
“This investment is a major step forward for the team, and we’re thrilled to have the backing of partners who share our vision for a more equitable and sustainable future in global healthcare.”
Anne Muir, the director of portfolio at Eos said, “EnsiliTech has the technology to transform how vaccines and other therapeutics are transported and stored. Reducing wastage, reducing cost and vastly improving health outcomes across the globe, this kind of science and this scale of potential sits at the core of our investment thesis at Eos.”
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