Oh what a night!

A fantastic array of life science innovators met up at the One Nucleus Annual Awards Dinner in London last night to celebrate their incredible achievements.

Many congratulations to the winners and finalists:

Best Performing Therapeutic Discovery Company of the Year
Winner: AviadoBio
Finalists: Healx, Resolution Therapeutics

Best Performing R&D Platform Development Company of the Year
Winner: Constructive Bio
Finalists: Nuclera, OutSee

Discovery Park has successfully concluded its latest Discovery Spark programme, an intensive business growth catalyst supporting early-stage start-ups. Designed to assist innovators refine their commercial strategies, build investor readiness, and connect with likeminded peers and industry specialists, the programme culminated in pitches from 10 pioneering companies dedicated to improving cancer treatment and patient outcomes.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic autoimmune disease that is marked by synovial inflammation, joint destruction, and systemic complication. Aside from causing great physical distress, RA also significantly adds to the socioeconomic burden posed on society.

iBoxit, a company based at Norwich Research Park, has been named as the winner of the Business Innovation Award at the Broadland and South Norfolk Business Awards 2025. iBoxit is a collaboration between entrepreneur John Farley and the University of East Anglia (UEA) under the tutelage of Prof Sheng Qi.

o2h discovery is excited to announce Ubiquigent as a winner of the o2h Kickstarter Competition. Ubiquigent Limited (Ubiquigent), a revenue- and IP-generating drug discovery company dedicated to enabling deubiquitinase (DUB)-focused drug discovery.

As part of the program, o2h discovery will provide Ubiquigent with access to chemists and associated end-to-end expertise to support its development of a novel portfolio of DUB-targeting compounds to enable the development of DUB-based therapeutics in partnership with its pharma and biotech partners.

• The top 20 global pharma companies, as a cohort, saw their combined R&D returns rise to 5.9% in 2024, up from 4.3% in 2023;
• GLP-1 drugs - which treat obesity and diabetes – are fuelling the surge, accounting for 2% of pharma’s forecast returns;
• Average cost to develop a drug has risen to $2.2 billion in 2024, up from $2.1 billion in 2023;
• 29 new ‘blockbuster assets’ (drugs with annual sales of at least $1 billion) have entered the drug development pipeline in 2024, up from 19 in 2023.