Introducing the Sunday Times Tech 100: Life sciences part 2

In this second of three articles on The Sunday Times top 100 tech companies list, pharmaphorum is focusing on the first nine of 18 start-ups featuring in the hardware category.

The list recognises the UK's fastest-growing private tech companies, and this year, almost a quarter (23) of them operate in the life sciences arena. It highlights companies demonstrating strong revenue growth over the last three years to 2024, innovation and long-term commercial sustainability, and shines a light on businesses that the newspaper believes are shaping the future of the UK technology sector. To qualify, companies must be independent, privately owned, and headquartered in the UK.

Collectively, the 100 companies on the list generated revenues of £3.7 billion ($5.06 billion), rising by around £3 billion in the three years, and now employ 23,100 people, having created 11,600 new positions over that time.

1) Autifony Therapeutics

Autifony Therapeutics has achieved 5th place in The Sunday Times list, in an endorsement of its discovery platform for central nervous system disorder drugs, which has generated two clinical-stage Kv3 potassium channel modulator candidates for Fragile X syndrome (AUTO0206; phase 2) and rare epilepsies (AUTO0201; phase 1), as well as partnerships with Boehringer Ingelheim and Jazz Pharma. The Stevenage-based company has earned its top-ranking position among life sciences-focused companies on the list, with revenues of £19.3 million in the last three years, a rise of 200%.

2) Biomodal

Cambridge genomics specialist Biomodal was named the sixth fastest-growing UK tech company with a 190% hike in revenues to £6.9 million. The company is developing DNA sequencing tools for life scientists and clinical developers that combine genetic and epigenetic analysis in a single sequencing run to provide insights into health and disease. Earlier this month, the company published a study in Nature Communications Medicine showcasing how the combination of methylation and hydroxymethylation biomarkers, using its proprietary duet multiomic technology, improves the earlier detection of colorectal cancer (CRC) via liquid biopsy.

3) Quell Therapeutics

At number seven on the list, London-based Quell Therapeutics has made a name for itself and garnered a big-ticket partnership with AstraZeneca, with its regulatory T-cell (Treg) therapy immunology platform. Last year, AZ exercised an option to license a first candidate from its inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) alliance with Quell, triggering a $10 million payment. They are also working on a type 1 diabetes (T1D) programme, in which AZ selected a lead candidate in 2024 with another $10 million payment. Meanwhile, Quell's in-house pipeline is led by QEL-001, in phase 1/2 testing to induce tolerance after a liver transplant. Its revenues have risen 174% to £43.8 million.

4) Bit.bio

Cambridge's Bit.bio is a synthetic biology company providing human cells for research, drug discovery, and cell therapy, and is the fourth life sciences company in the top 10, making it to position eight with a 173% increase in revenues to £6.9 million. It is advancing a platform – called ioCells – that is designed to make cell programming reliable, scalable, and commercially simple, and generates revenues from the sale of products like stem cell-derived models of human diseases. Earlier this month, it closed an impressive $50 million third-round financing led by M&G Investments, taking the total raised to date above $225 million.

5) Reacta Healthcare

Food allergy diagnostics developer React Healthcare, from Deeside in Flintshire, Wales, comes in at number 12, with a 117% increase in revenues to £7.3 million in 2024. Its pharma-grade, oral food challenge test meals are used to diagnose and monitor potentially life-threatening allergies to foods such as peanuts, milk, and egg. They are designed so that the allergen is masked, with no telltale taste, texture, or smell, and come with non-allergen-containing control meals. Since 2018, the company's meals have been used by pharma companies to test the efficacy of treatments for food allergies.

6) Cerca Magnetics

Nottingham-based Cerca Magnetics, a University of Nottingham spin-out specialising in wearable, quantum-enabled brain scanners for human brain imaging, was ranked 15th in the Sunday Times list. Sales of its lightweight wearable scanner reached £6.4 million, a rise of 107%. The OPM-MEG unit shows neurons firing in real time and can be used to monitor neural activity in diseases like epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and dementia, and has been sold to neuroscience centres in 12 countries across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australasia. Founded in 2020, Cerca was recently awarded a £2.8 million contract to develop and build a mobile OPM-MEG variant for the UK Ministry of Defence, which will use it to assess blast exposure on military personnel.

7) Cycle Pharmaceuticals

At number 22, Cambridge's Cycle Pharmaceuticals, a rare disease specialist founded in 2012 whose revenues rose 80% to £104.5 million, is already well established with several products on the market and a couple of acquisitions of US companies in its recent history. Last year, it bought Banner Life Sciences, adding FDA-approved multiple sclerosis therapy Bafiertam (monomethyl fumarate), as well as Applied Therapeutics and its late-stage selective aldose reductase inhibitor, govorestat, for Charcot-Marie-Tooth sorbitol dehydrogenase deficiency (CMT-SORD) and the genetic disorder classic galactosaemia.

8) Touchlight

Touchlight, a London contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) specialising in cell-free DNA manufacturing, rather than conventional, plasmid-based production in microorganisms, comes in at position 24 on the list. The company's proprietary enzymatic DNA manufacturing platform enables multi-gramme DNA production in weeks, rather than months, and promises to deliver high purity and reduced immunogenicity. Revenues rose 78% to reach £16.6 million in 2024.

9) Huma

Rounding out the first half of this hardware round-up – at position 25 with a 78% rise in revenues to £30.1 million – is Huma, an AI-powered digital health company that develops apps to support patients with booking appointments, managing prescriptions, remote patient monitoring, and digitally-assisted clinical trials, often in partnership with pharma companies. Earlier this week, it launched Huma Intelligence Scribe, an AI-powered platform designed to transform the way clinical consultations are documented and understood, which grew out of a collaboration with tech giant NVIDIA and will start pilot testing in clinical centres in the coming weeks.

Look out for the final instalment of this series later this week, in which we will give a rundown of the final nine of 18 companies lauded for their expertise in life sciences hardware.

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