Artificial Fertility Specialist Secures £65,000 Investment
Complete the form below to unlock access to ALL audio articles.
An emerging artificial fertility specialist company, whose work could reduce the number of animals used in research by 24 per cent, has secured £65,000 investment from The North West Fund for Biomedical, managed by SPARK Impact.
Studies have shown Ostara’s technology to be effective in substantially enhancing livestock breeding programmes and ultimately improving the efficiency of current breeding techniques.
In addition to domestic species, it could also be used to increase the reproductive success of rare animals and endangered species. In the longer term, Ostara’s technology could be deployed to boost success rates of existing human infertility treatment practices.
Investing the money is The North West Fund for Biomedical which is part of the wider £155m North West Fund, financed jointly by the European Regional Development Fund and the European Investment Bank.
Dr Nadia Gopichandran, co-founder and chief technical director of Ostara, said: “We are very excited to receive this funding. I would like to thank SPARK Impact and The North West Fund for Biomedical for investing in Ostara, and giving us the opportunity to develop new products in the fertility field.
“The investment means we can push on with our plans to progress our technology further with the aim of launching a product in 2015.”
Dr Penny Attridge, senior investment director at SPARK Impact and fund manager for The North West Fund for Biomedical said: “The team at Ostara is passionate about this technology and we hope to see them succeed in taking this innovative product to market.”
Ostara Biomedical Ltd is The North West Fund for Biomedical’s 51st investment to date and 36th company to be supported by The Fund.
