London, UK, 16 October, 2025 / Laverock Therapeutics is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a prestigious Biomedical Catalyst award, consisting of a £500k grant, as part of the 2024 funding competition from Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. The award will allow Laverock to further progress its next generation gene control platform and anti-cancer macrophage cell therapeutics for hard-to-treat cancers.
Laverock’s proprietary platform for controlling gene expression via micro-(mi-) RNA recoding enables development of programmable cell-based therapeutics with improved efficacy and safety over the current state of the art. In a new concept to be developed, the Biomedical Catalyst award will be used to validate a more versatile approach to harnessing the activation of these non-coding miRNAs in functional cell states. Validation will come from assessing the programmed cells with a suite of laboratory based, human disease representative model systems.
Support from Innovate UK and the Biomedical Catalyst for this project will result in extension to Laverock’s platform capabilities, configured on harnessing the intrinsic biology of miRNAs, while further strengthening the company’s internal capabilities in immune oncology. Consequently, project output will facilitate development and nomination of future oncology therapeutic candidates.
Vlad Seitan, Chief Scientific Officer of Laverock Therapeutics, said, ‘We’re tremendously excited by this Biomedical Catalyst award and the public endorsement of our approach that Innovate UK funding provides. We’d like to thank Innovate UK for their support and look forward to integrating our novel programmable gene silencing platform into more effective therapeutic designs for the benefit of the global cancer patient community.’
This award complements the company’s recent expansion of its seed funding round to £20m
ENDS
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Laverock Therapeutics
Notes to Editors
About Laverock Therapeutics
Laverock Therapeutics is powering the development of disease-responsive advanced therapies through our unique, programmable gene control technology. Our innovative platform harnesses the cell’s natural regulatory mechanisms to deliver programmable and tunable gene control through recoded miRNAs. This enables the development of highly effective medicines with enhanced precision and improved safety profiles.
Utilising our platform technologies, we are working to develop the next-generation of advanced therapies, both through our own pipeline – targeting oncology and genetic medicine – and through partnerships.
Laverock has a highly experienced leadership team with proven track records in biotechnology, pharma and academia and an exceptionally strong Board. Laverock has raised more than £20m seed funding to date from high-calibre investors including Calculus Capital, EliLilly and Company, Mercia Ventures, Maven Capital Partners, Eos Advisory, UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund, Tekfen Ventures and Norcliffe Capital.
For more information, please visit www.laverocktx.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
About Innovate UK
Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas.
We connect businesses to the partners, customers and investors that can help them turn ideas into commercially successful products and services and business growth.
We fund business and research collaborations to accelerate innovation and drive business investment into R&D. Our support is available to businesses across all economic sectors, value chains and UK regions.
Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation. For more information visit www.ukri.org/councils/innovate-uk/
