Synthetic biology start-ups doubled every five years in UK
10 Aug 2017
The number of synthetic biology start-ups in the UK between 2000 and 2016 has doubled every five years, with three quarters still active reveals a new survey.
National centre for the commercialisation of synthetic biology, SynbiCITE, reveals in its report that £620 million has been raised since 2010.
Of this 91% or £564 million came from private sources with just 9% from public sources. However, the report notes “the UK government has also shown great support for synthetic biology investing £300m in between 2009-2016.”
A total of £487million of the overall start-up funding went to tech transfer start-ups which formed just over half of all new start-ups.
While activity is overwhelmingly concentrated in the south and east of the UK, university clusters form a significant presence.
Top performers include:
Imperial College (9 start-ups)
Oxford/ Cambridge 8
Aberdeen 5
UCL 4
Dundee/Edinburgh/Newcastle/Manchester/Sheffield 3
Glasgow, Herriot-Watt, Birmingham, QMUL, Bristol and Warwick all recorded 2 start-ups each.
