Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (SBC) celebrates the graduation of eight of the UK's most promising health innovation start-ups from its 2025 Catalyser Business Accelerator, supported by Hertfordshire Futures and Pharmidex.

The Catalyser was launched by SBC to help early-stage health and life sciences businesses define and sharpen their route to market with a structured programme built around the Triple Chasm framework. This approach guides ventures through key aspects of scale-up strategy, including product positioning, customer targeting, IP development, fundraising, and talent acquisition.

Last Thursday, the graduating 2025 cohort were celebrated at a showcase event where each team presented their commercialisation strategies to an audience of investors, fellow founders and industry experts. Attendees were then invited to engage in Q&A sessions to provide feedback, fresh perspectives, and connections to support each venture's next phase of growth.

Marco Delise, PhD, Director of Entrepreneurship at SBC, said: "It was great to see the 2025 cohort step back from the day-to-day and engage with the Triple Chasm framework to identify strategic gaps and opportunities. Building a start-up in this sector is no easy feat - the more we can do to de-risk the journey, the better we can support founders on the road to success.”

The graduates included those tackling complex challenges related to age-related diseases, cancer therapies, artificial organ technology, and RNA delivery systems. The graduates include:

•  Five ALARM BIO – Tackling age-related diseases (Janette Thomas)
• Auxi Bio – Bioartificial liver technology (Hassan Rashidi)
  
• Healthspan Biotics – Affordable probiotic therapy for Alzheimer’s (Yizhou Yu, Civia Chen)
• Creasallis – Modified antibodies for solid tumours (Zahra Jawad, Nicola Ramsay, Silvia Mele, Haren Arulanantham)
• Isoform Oncology – Precision oncology reimagined (Lee Larcombe, Sarah Morgan, Isabella Garcia)
• Kilogen – Developing next-generation molecular glues (Mark McAlister, Michal Bista)
• Sentinal 4D – Biology-first, data-driven phenotypic drug discovery (Georgia Mitsi)
  
• Uncommon – RNA delivery for complex diseases (Benjamina Bollag, Ruth Faram)

With two cohorts now completed under Hertfordshire Futures’ sponsorship, the Catalyser is helping to cement the region’s leadership in nurturing world-class biotech innovation.

Paul Witcombe, Life Sciences & Advanced Manufacturing Sector Lead at Hertfordshire Futures, said: “Hertfordshire Futures is proud to help accelerate the growth of high-potential early-stage life sciences businesses in our county. Every one of these ventures has the capacity to raise significant equity, create high-value jobs, and bring breakthrough medical innovations to market.

“By drawing on Hertfordshire’s rich life sciences heritage and deep well of expertise, we’re not just supporting individual companies, we’re strengthening the entire ecosystem for long-term growth and global impact.”

As part of the programme, all graduates received a complimentary CRO support package from award-winning partner Pharmidex.

Ash Alavijeh, Director of Operations at Pharmidex, said: “It’s been a pleasure to support such an inspiring group of entrepreneurs. We believe strongly in providing hands-on, practical support to early-stage companies, and this partnership with SBC is a perfect example of how industry can play an active role in strengthening the innovation pipeline.”

Prashant Shah, CEO and Co-Founder of o2h Discovery, who was one of the 13 expert panellists on the day, commented: “The Catalyser programme highlights the importance of strategic and scientific thinking hand in hand. We were proud to support these founders and look forward to watching their progress.”

For more information on the programme, please visit the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst website.