Allied Minds secures £55m funding for up to ten new drugs

Science and technology development and commercialisation company Allied Minds announced a fresh $80m (£55m) of investment commitments on Tuesday, received through its newly-formed subsidiary ABLS Capital.

The FTSE 250 firm said the funding would allow up to ten potential lead optimisation programmes of promising drug development opportunities that have successfully completed an initial candidate feasibility programme to proceed.

Pursuant to the terms of the ABLS partnership formed between Allied Minds and BMS in 2014, BMS is committed to fund an additional $20m alongside these commitments.

Investors in ABLS Capital include Woodford Investment Management, Invesco Asset Management, as well as Allied Minds and others.

"This is another exciting step forward for achieving the goals of ABLS, which was formed less than two years ago,” said Allied Minds CEO Chris Silva.

“Backed by supportive new investors and together with our partner Bristol-Myers Squibb, we have secured sufficient funding commitments for the preclinical development of up to ten drug candidates.

“Each of these have the potential to address areas of great unmet medical need across very sizeable markets,” Silva explained.