Best Communication Award

sponsored by ICR Healthcare 

 
The 2025 shortlist:

Hikma Pharmaceuticals plc

London-based Hikma helps put better health within reach every day for millions of people around the world. The group uses its unique insight and expertise to transform cutting-edge science into innovative solutions through its broad range of branded and non-branded generic medicines.

During the period under review, Hikma participated in ten investor conferences and a series of roadshows across North America, Europe and the UK, providing investors with opportunities to interact directly with IR and management. The group hosted a Meet the Management event for sell-side analysts and investors at its offices and manufacturing facility in Casablanca, Morocco, which included a tour of the facility, and presentations from senior members of the MENA team. Hikma’s website was updated in February 2024 with a new look and feel focusing on its purpose, financial results, and strategic direction, which resulted in an increase in views of nearly 200%. 

hVIVO plc

London-based hVIVO is a rapidly growing specialist contract research organisation (CRO) and the world leader in testing infectious and respiratory disease vaccines and therapeutics using human challenge clinical trials, providing end-to-end early clinical development services for its global client base of biopharma companies.

In July 2024, hVIVO hosted two large scale events to showcase the opening of its new facility in Canary Wharf, the world’s largest quarantine facility for human challenge trials. The first event was customer focussed, whilst the second event hosted institutional investors, sell-side analysts and lifesciences media. The positive feedback received led to hVIVO giving ten group tours to investors in the period. In addition, hVIVO delivered three live presentations following the release of its financial results with the group CEO and CFO answering live questions. hVIVO recently updated its investor website to ensure it is a destination for investors seeking more information. 

Ondine Biomedical

Ondine Biomedical is a Canadian life sciences company, based in Vancouver, that is quoted on AIM. Ondine has become a global leader in photodisinfection-based therapies to prevent and treat a broad spectrum of infections, including those caused by drug-resistant pathogens. 

Ondine Biomedical places a strong emphasis on transparent, consistent communication to deepen investor understanding of its clinical achievements, commercial momentum, and long-term growth potential. The group leverages its Investor Meet Company platform for interactive webcasts, providing shareholders and prospective investors with direct access to its leadership team through real-time Q&A sessions. In addition, Ondine Biomedical conducts in-person meetings between its CEO, President & CTO, and institutional investors. The group maintains high engagement through regular CEO email updates, which average a unique open rate of 44%. 

Oxford Biomedica plc

Oxford Biomedica is one of the original pioneers in gene and cell therapy. Based in Oxford, the group collaborates with some of the world’s most innovative pharmaceutical and biotech companies towards a shared mission: to make cell and gene therapy a universally accessible clinical option.

Since the unveiling of OXB’s new strategy as a pure-play CDMO in September 2023, the group has proactively presented its new equity story to the market through a dynamic and transparent communications programme, consistently keeping stakeholders informed and engaged during a period of strategic change. In order to provide clarity to the market, OXB released business and trading updates, including operational and financial updates as well as key commercial KPIs. This newsflow was also supported by active participation at key investor events such as the Leerink Healthcare Conference and Jefferies London Healthcare Conference. OXB’s digital channels played a critical role in this communication, with social media used actively to share corporate updates, operational milestones, and thought leadership content. 

Pharming Group NV

Pharming is a global biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Leiden, the Netherlands, with a US presence located in New Jersey.  The group is commercialising and developing an innovative portfolio of protein replacement therapies and precision medicines to help transform the lives of patients with rare, debilitating, and life-threatening diseases.

Pharming’s two-person Comms and IR team over-performed during the period, delivering impactful and wide-ranging collateral. The group’s messaging supported the ongoing launch of its second product, Joenja, which represents a significant milestone for Pharming. The IR team also generated significant communications regarding the successful acquisition of Abliva AB, which added a second potential blockbuster to its pipeline. Pharming attended thirteen investor conferences during the period, along with holding four stand-alone roadshows for investors, in addition to handling the transition of its long-term CEO, Sijmen de Vries, who was replaced by Fabrice Chouraqui, formerly of Novartis. 

Verona Pharma plc

London-based Verona Pharma is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercialising innovative therapies for the treatment of chronic respiratory diseases. The group’s first commercial product is the first inhaled therapy for the maintenance treatment of COPD that combines bronchodilator and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory activities in one molecule.

2024 was a milestone year for Verona Pharma, during which the group prioritised clear and effective communication with the goal of continued transparency among its shareholders. Following major announcements, Verona hosts webcasts led by its CEO and management team to provide additional context to investors. During the period, the group held 550 investor meetings, and hosted fireside chats at prominent investor conferences, including the Canaccord Annual Growth Conference, Jefferies London Healthcare Conference and the Leerink Global Healthcare Conference. The group uses its corporate social media channels, investor website, and press releases to communicate key clinical and product updates, in addition to sending direct updates to individuals subscribed to email alerts. 

Best Technology Award

sponsored by RBC Capital Markets

The 2025 shortlist:

Adaptimmune Therapeutics plc

Headquartered in Oxfordshire, Adaptimmune is a fully integrated cell therapy company working to redefine how cancer is treated. With its unique engineered T-cell receptor (TCR) platform, the group is developing personalised medicines designed to target and destroy difficult-to-treat solid tumour cancers.

Adaptimmune has an industry-leading technology platform which enables identification of targets, engineering and selection of T-cell receptors to targets, and the preclinical screening of its end T-cell therapies. The group’s technology platform provides a unique ability to drive T-cell therapies forward to the clinic whilst minimising the risk of cross-reactivity to healthy and non-target tissue. The platform has been developed over 15 years by leading experts in immune-oncology and T-cell receptors and is redefining how some of the most challenging solid tumours are treated. 

Allergy Therapeutics plc

Sussex-based Allergy Therapeutics is a market leading, pioneering immunology business with specialist experience in the research and development of allergy treatments. The group’s adjuvant technologies advance the results of allergy immunotherapy and drive beneficial immune responses in cancer and infectious disease.

Allergy Therapeutics is a global pioneer of convenient treatment for allergy and immune related disorders. The group’s innovative VLP Peanut vaccine potentially allows patients who once faced anaphylaxis to safely consume peanuts. The vaccine approach uses virus-like particles derived from cucumber mosaic virus displaying the key peanut allergen Ara h 2. This design aims to retrain the immune system to tolerate peanut protein rather than mount a dangerous allergic response. Early results from the ongoing Phase I/IIa PROTECT clinical trial, currently underway in the US, are promising and if successful in later trials, VLP Peanut could transform treatment for millions worldwide. 

ANGLE plc

Surrey-based Angle is a world leader in liquid biopsy, dedicated to advancing cancer care. The group’s Parsortix technology has the potential to deliver profound improvements in clinical and health economic outcomes in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

ANGLE’s Parsortix technology is a unique CTC harvesting method using patented microfluidics in the form of a single use cassette, housed within an automated system. Its patented Parsortix PC1 system is the first FDA cleared medical device for the capture and harvest of intact CTCs from metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patient blood for subsequent, user-validated analysis. Having the ability to monitor and analyse CTCs could transform the treatment of MBC by providing patients with personalised cancer care through a non-invasive, repeatable liquid biopsy. ANGLE has made excellent progress to commercialise Parsortix in the last year, including entering into a supplier agreement with AstraZeneca. 

Avacta Group plc

London-based Avacta Group is a life sciences company developing next generation peptide drug conjugates. The group is challenging current drug delivery methods to expand the reach of highly potent therapeutics with an unwavering commitment to eliminate cancer.

Avacta’s proprietary pre|CISION® platform leverages tumour-specific activation to precisely release potent therapeutic agents in the tumour microenvironment through activation by tumour-associated proteases, enabling systemic administration of otherwise toxic payloads only in the tumour while sparing healthy tissue. This addresses one of the key limitations of conventional chemotherapy and other powerful anticancer agents, minimising the debilitating side effects they can cause. With promising clinical data and a diversified preclinical pipeline, Avacta’s pre|CISION® platform is now positioned as a next-generation therapeutic engine capable of generating a broad portfolio of tumour-activated therapies. 

Creo Medical Group plc

Chepstow-based Creo Medical is a commercial-stage company developing cutting-edge, electrosurgical devices for minimally invasive procedures. The group has successfully brought to market the CROMA Advanced Energy platform, which is powered by Kamaptive Technology and includes a comprehensive suite of multi and single modality devices.

Creo’s platform is a full-spectrum adaptive technology that combines radiofrequency energy with microwaves. These can be harnessed with Creo's flexible, accurate, and highly controllable surgical tools, which enable physicians to make precise, localised cuts (bipolar radiofrequency), and controlled coagulation (microwaves), delivered through a standard flexible endoscope. The group’s SpeedboatTM device has been used by clinicians in the UK, EU, US, Africa and APAC to treat cancerous and pre-cancerous lesions. Creo currently has an ongoing collaboration with NASDAQ-listed robotic surgery giant Intuitive, to combine aspects of its technology with Intuitive’s robotics programme, establishing the group as a key innovation driver in the medtech space. 

Scancell Holdings plc

Oxford-based Scancell is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel immuno-oncology therapies. The group’s objective is to give patients who have unresponsive tumours an increased chance of survival through durable and potent immune responses.

Scancell has built a pipeline of next generation DNA cancer vaccines, designed to generate lasting immune responses in patients with hard-to-treat cancers, without compromising safety. Through targeting modifications of proteins and lipids prevalent in cancer, the group can generate potent anti-tumour responses by harnessing the adaptive immune response. The group has consistently produced exemplary data from its two lead programmes, SCOPE and ModiFY, validating Scancell’s technology and its underlying platform. 

The Emerging Star Award

sponsored by HSBC Innovation Banking

The 2025 shortlist:

Apollo Therapeutics

Headquartered in Cambridge, Apollo Therapeutics is portfolio biopharmaceutical company with presence in both the UK and US. The group translates breakthroughs in biology and basic medical research into innovative new medicines and has over 20 active therapeutic programs.

Apollo’s portfolio-based model allows the group to focus on scaling a robust and potentially transformative pipeline. The group has over 15 therapeutic programs in development across oncology, major inflammatory disorders and rare disease and has core innovation sourcing and drug discovery collaborations with six of the world’s leading universities. In November 2024, Apollo signed an exclusive license agreement with Sunshine Lake Pharma for the development of its most clinically advanced FGF21/GLP-1 dual receptor agonist, which has potential to deliver enhanced efficacy in a range of conditions. 

Beacon Therapeutics

Headquartered in the US with offices in London, Beacon Therapeutics is an ophthalmic gene therapy company focused on rare genetic eye disease. The group was founded in 2023 to save and restore the vision of patients with a range of prevalent and rare retinal diseases that result in blindness.

Beacon Therapeutics aims to improve patient outcomes for individuals living with X-Linked Retinitis Pigmentosa (XLRP), a condition impacting younger people and men that can often lead to legal blindness by age 40. The group has access to a target generation technology platform that will identify, screen and search secreted proteins in the ophthalmology space. In July last year, Beacon raised $170m in Series B funding led by life sciences venture capital firm, Forbion, alongside existing investors Syncona and Oxford Science Enterprises, in addition to new investors TCGX and Advent Life Sciences. 

Bioptimus

Paris-based Bioptimus is an AI startup group building the world’s first multi-modal foundation model for biology. The group’s mission is to fuel breakthrough discoveries and accelerate innovations in biomedicine and beyond.

Bioptimus unites a world-class team of scientists from Owkin and Google DeepMind alumni to transform biology with cutting-edge AI foundation model technologies that capture the various scales of biology. In March this year, the group released its state-of-the-art AI model for histopathology, H-optimus-1, which is trained on millions of whole-slide pathology images and delivers best-in-class performance across essential diagnostic and research tasks—such as cancer subtype classification, tumor grading, biomarker detection, and quality control of digital slides. The AI model launched on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace last month, providing healthcare and life sciences organisations with immediate access to deploy Bioptimus’s cutting-edge pathology model in their own secure cloud environments. 

Myricx Bio

London-based Myricx Bio is a biotech focused on the discovery and development of a completely novel class of selective cytotoxic payloads for antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), based on inhibitors of N-myristoyltransferases (NMT) for the treatment of cancer. 

Originating from groundbreaking research at Imperial College London and the Francis Crick Institute, Myricx Bio has rapidly transitioned from an academic discovery into a scaling biotech. The group secured a historic £90m Series A financing round in July last year, which was the largest ever for a UK academic spinout, reflecting the confidence that the top-tier investor syndicate has in the group. Myricx has assembled an experienced leadership team with deep knowledge and proven track records in biologics and pharmaceuticals and is utilising its fundraise to support the development of the group’s pioneering N-myristoyl transferase inhibitor platform. 

Nuclera

Headquartered in Cambridge, with offices in Boston, Nuclera is a pioneer in bringing rapid protein prototyping to the benchtop. The group’s technology accelerates breakthrough improvements in human health and empowers life science researchers with easy access to target proteins. 

Nuclera is a disruptor in the life science sector, thanks to its eProtein Discovery™ benchtop system, which is revolutionising drug discovery by enabling faster and more efficient identification of potential drug candidates. The group secured a major fundraise last year, a $75m Series C, to accelerate the commercialisation of its system, highlighting the strong market confidence in Nuclera’s technology. The system has gained traction among world-class academic institutions and industry leaders and in May last year was installed at top institutions, including the University of Cambridge, The Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) in Belgium, and the CRUK Cambridge Institute. 

Purespring Therapeutics

London-based Purespring Therapeutics is developing gene therapies to halt or prevent kidney disease. The group is the first company to successfully treat kidney disease by targeting the podocyte, a specialised cell that is implicated in the majority of renal disease.

Purespring is powered by its leading gene therapy platform, which enables streamlined gene therapy development for both monogenic and non-monogenic renal diseases. Previously, the ability to target the podocyte has been a major barrier to gene therapy for the kidney, however breakthrough work conducted by Purespring has demonstrated the ability of the AAV platform to target a range of kidney diseases. In October last year, the group raised £80m in a Series B financing from a high-quality investor syndicate, in addition to appointing an experienced CEO (former President of Novartis Europe) to lead the group through clinical trials. 

Quell Therapeutics

London-based Quell Therapeutics delivers pioneering Treg therapies to durably transform the lives of people suffering from immune-mediated diseases. The group’s extensive experience across all aspects of cell therapy development has ensured continued leadership in the engineered Treg field.

In November last year Quell announced that AstraZeneca had selected a candidate to progress in its Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) Treg cell therapy program. This was the first significant research milestone achieved under its 2023 collaboration agreement with AstraZeneca to develop, manufacture and commercialize autologous, engineered Treg cell therapies for Type 1 Diabetes and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). As a result of this milestone, AstraZeneca exercised its exclusive option to license the potential therapy for further development and commercialisation, resulting in a milestone payment to Quell of $10m. 

Zelluna

Based in Norway, Zelluna’s mission is to develop novel TCR-NK therapies for treatment of solid cancers. The team comprises experienced biotech entrepreneurs that have taken immune-oncology projects from inception through to the clinic. The group is supported by a highly experienced international board. 

Zelluna’s TCR-NK platform is truly innovative and is protected by a strong foundational patent, with the potential to develop disruptive new cancer immunotherapies across a broad range of solid tumour indications with curative potential. In March 2025, Zelluna became the first ever cell therapy company to list on the Oslo Stock Exchange following the successful completion of a merger with Ultimovacs and a private placement, representing a pivotal moment in the group’s growth. Zelluna is planning its first IND (Investigational New Drug Application) later this year and aims to generate its first clinical data next year. 

Mediscience Media Commentator of the Year Award

sponsored by MEDiSTRAVA

The 2025 shortlist:

Amy Brown/BiotechTV

Amy is the UK-based contributor for Biotech TV and a freelance writer on the business of drug development. Amy covers biotech news and research in the London-Oxford-Cambridge triangle area. Prior to this role Amy was the Deputy Editor at Evaluate Vantage.

Amy’s hard work and ability to communicate complex topics have made her a valuable voice in biotech media. Amy has rapidly expanded the coverage of UK companies on the popular BiotechTV platform, having joined midway through 2024. She is a dedicated and thoughtful journalist who consistently brings insight and professionalism to her coverage of the biotech industry. Amy takes the time to research companies she interviews, ensuring she understands both the science and the broader context, and her interviews are well-prepared, engaging, and informative. 

Endpoints/the Team

Endpoints is the biopharma world's leading source for breaking news, smart analysis and exclusive access. The publication is part of the Financial Times Group and is led by John Carroll, who is the co-founder of Endpoints News and has covered biopharma for the past 20 years. 

The Endpoints Team consistently offer exclusive reporting, real-time coverage, and in-depth profiles of people behind deals, science, and financial transactions. The team is relied upon across the industry as a trusted source for up-to-the-moment news and detailed reporting on science and business. Both the Endpoints Team and John Carroll personally, have been regulars on the shortlist for this award, validating the valuable service the publication provides to the sector on a daily basis. 

Hannah Kuchler/Financial Times

Hannah Kuchler is the global pharmaceutical editor for the Financial Times. She was part of the FT’s team reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic, which received an honourable mention at the SABEW awards for its coverage. Hannah was shortlisted for this award last year.

Hannah has been shortlisted once again this year for her consistent high-quality commentary on the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector, in addition to her strong reporting on healthcare relevant issues. Prior to her current role, Hannah was the US pharma and biotech correspondent for the FT, where she collaborated with PBS Frontline on a documentary about the opioids crisis, which was nominated for an Emmy and won a Loeb award. Hannah’s other roles have included over five years as a technology correspondent covering social media and cyber security in San Francisco. 

Melanie Senior

Melanie is a highly respected freelance journalist whose clear, insightful reporting helps shape the understanding of the life sciences sector. Writing for Nature Biotechnology, Evaluate and IN VIVO, she delivers well-informed analysis on science, strategy, policy and market trends. Melanie has been shortlisted for this award for the past two years.

This year, Melanie’s coverage has addressed key developments from the rise in early-stage biopharma deals, to shifts in orphan drug incentives and the role of AI in oncology R&D. Her writing is as accessible as it is analytical, making her a trusted voice for executives, investors and policymakers. Melanie has brought attention to areas such as radiopharmaceuticals and biotech self-commercialisation, offering perspective that is grounded in sector expertise. 

Tina Tan/FirstWord Healthtech

Tina is the Executive Editor of FirstWord HealthTech, based in London. She has been covering the medtech and healthtech sectors since 1997 providing news reporting, insights and interviews from the intersection of technology and healthcare, including digital health. 

Tina is a receptive and insightful commentator with deep insight and knowledge of the medtech sector. She is a regular contributor at industry conferences and a trusted voice in the sector. Prior to her role at FirstWord HealthTech, Tina was Editor-in-Chief at Medtech Insight.  FirstWord HealthTech provides fast and reliable news delivery of the latest developments in the digital health industry, with related analyses, physician polls and executive interviews to provide deeper insights.