ReFleks - Start-up Acceleration

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic disabling condition affecting a third of the population over the age of 55yrs, it is the main cause of workplace absenteeism (30.8million working days are lost annually) and accounts for 1-2.5% of the GDP in western countries. There is no treatment that effectively halts or reverts OA and current treatment, namely joint replacement, costs the NHS £5.2bn annually, with indirect costs accounting for a further £8bn. In addition to the economic threat OA poses in a growing, ageing population, the effect on an individual’s well-being is formidable – movement, independence, pain and mental health are all significantly impacted. In our lab we have been developing a treatment for joint injuries based on Agrin, a molecule naturally found in healthy cartilage but absent in OA patients. We have demonstrated that intra-articular injection of a proprietary engineered version of Agrin has remarkable efficacy in repairing cartilage lesions, restoring joint function, and providing pain relief. Beyond healing acute cartilage defects, Agrin also prevents OA development, making it a true disease-modifying therapy. The wealth of molecular, cellular and large animal data gives confidence that fast-tracking this into human cartilage defect conditions is both clinically and commercially appropriate. Agrin is highly suitable as a therapeutic due to its low cost of manufacture, suitability for large-scale manufacturing, ability to be locally administered and very high potency. Our findings have been published in a number of high-impact journals. We are completing the preclinical package for a therapeutic version of Agrin, commercially through our spin-out company ReFleks with support from Queen Mary Innovation (QMI). A spin-out approach has been chosen as the most effective and efficient strategy for advancing the therapeutic molecule to clinical application, leveraging the world-leading expertise of the founding team and the agility of a dedicated company to secure investment. This model ensures targeted resource allocation and rapid decision-making. We will recruit an interim CEO and COO to facilitate the recruitment of our executive team to propel the company forward. ReFleks' mission is to pioneer the development of the first disease-modifying therapeutic for cartilage defects and osteoarthritis, transforming treatment by addressing the underlying causes rather than just managing symptoms. Ultimately our aim is to treat patients and overcome a major bottleneck in OA drug development, which is the sporadic and unpredictable progression of OA, leading to the large scale and lengthy duration of clinical trials, ultimately hindering timely market entry. To circumvent this, we are recruiting an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse cohort (North-East London OA -NELOA) of patients (through our BRC) post joint injury- as 51% of patients who have suffered a knee injury will go onto develop secondary OA within 12 months. This patient cohort will enable us to distinguish those patients who will progress to develop osteoarthritis from “non progressors” using clinical and imaging data (MRI, X-Ray, bloods etc), PROMS and wearable data. We have developed the ReFleks App to monitor patients’ health whilst providing users with news, PPI events and research. This is available in English and Bengali to be as inclusive as possible for the diverse NELOA cohort. This approach will help predict which patients will develop osteoarthritis within a year, enriching clinical trial cohorts and reducing trial size and duration, thereby speeding up delivery of treatments, such as Agrin.