Imperial Innovations Group plc (AIM:IVO, 'Innovations'), the leading technology commercialisation and investment company and S.R.One Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline's venture captial fund, announce today that they have led, alongside co-investor UCL Business PLC (UCLB), an POUND850,000 seed financing for Puridify, a newly formed company providing purification solutions for biotherapeutic manufacturing.

Puridify's technology was developed in the world-leading Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering at UCL (University College London). UCLB, the technology transfer office for UCL, licensed this technology to Puridify in 2014. It was the winner of the 2013 OneStart competition (founded by SR One and the Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable, http://www.oxbridgebiotech.com/onestart), which is designed to encourage young entrepreneurs. The company has received additional matched-funding awards totalling £780,000 from the UK's innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board, to support advancement of the technology.

Puridify is developing a proprietary nanofibre technology to improve the efficiency of purification in biopharmaceutical production, allowing more drug product to be produced in a shorter amount of time and at lower cost. This is critical to the industry as it will enable more biopharmaceuticals of the future to justify the economics of their development.

Professor Nigel Titchener-Hooker, Head of Department of the Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering at UCL, said: 'UCL Biochemical Engineering is excited to see the progress of a spin-out technology that builds on the department's 60 year history of working with industry to optimise biotherapeutic manufacture.'

Oliver Hardick, CEO of Puridify, said: 'Puridify has had a fantastic start in the biotech sector and has ambitious plans to bring its exciting platform purification technology to market. The support of leading Venture Capitalists like Imperial Innovations and SR One is critical to our commercialisation and will allow Puridify to develop value and expertise in UK bioprocessing.'

Maina Bhaman, Director at Imperial Innovations, said: 'The biopharmaceutical industry is facing a large and growing need for increased purification efficiency and reduced costs in order to maintain cost- competitiveness. Puridify's technology can address these needs, and we are pleased to be supporting the company as it develops towards commercialisation.'

Matthew Foy, Partner at SR One, said: 'Puridify is a fantastic example of when industry comes together to support bright young entrepreneurs through initiatives such as OneStart, companies with the capacity to significantly impact the healthcare landscape are born.'