ImmuONE Turns four
When I first stepped onto the University of Hertfordshire campus, ready to embark on my PhD in immunology, I didn’t know where the future would take me.
Fast forward a few short years, and I am leading ImmuONE, a pioneering biotech start-up that specialises in human alveolar macrophage responses and epithelial cell culture platforms. Where has the time gone?
When I look back on all of our achievements to date, as we launch our first product, ImmuPHAGE™, today, I couldn’t be more proud. Here’s a trip down memory lane to see how it all started.
Back in 2019, I commercially validated a model built during my Ph.D. at the University of Hertfordshire, with support from Innovate UK. The funding from Innovate UK allowed me to travel all over the world across three continents, from the United States to Asia to Europe, speaking to potential clients and end-users of my model. I quickly realised that many companies across a wide range of industries struggled with problems that my research could solve. I knew that there was a commercial need, and so I set about building a company.
There was a steep learning curve for myself and my partner, Dr Victoria Hutter. We were scientists by training, and we quickly had to learn about business. But we were committed to ImmuONE – we both believe in the need for relevant alveolar models that better represent human physiology – and now we’ve grown the business!.
From its humble origins in the cell culture lab of the University of Hertfordshire, ImmuONE now has its own facilities at Sycamore house in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. With a specialised staff of 12 people, we’re well on track to becoming a leader in in vitro lung products and services and the only alveolar immune system specialists in the UK.
We’re also a company with a sustainable and ethical focus. Developing our models will focus pre-clinical studies on human-relevant responses, rather than letting companies waste time on animal trials which yield results that may not be related to humans at all. What’s more, our work will reduce the number of animals that need to be used in animal testing trials, focusing on human-relevant responses.
ImmuONE continues to grow and pioneer innovations for in vitro technologies helping a wide range of industries to gain better safety predictions while meeting their sustainability goals. Our mission is to be a leader in the space of translational innovations and knowledge for the lung and immune cell systems providing relevant human safety assessments and fast product to market outcomes.
Born innovators
We are innovating all the time – I’m delighted that this year’s anniversary coincides with the launch of our product, ImmuPHAGE™. This is the revolutionary technology that we’ve been using within our ImmuONE labs to deliver high quality services to you – now you can carry out those tests in the safety of your own lab!
At ImmuONE, we offer specialised in-house CRO services with commercially available in vitro products and services for industry. We are strong advocates of standardised, relevant and reproducible studies to make your research the best it can be. We’re also champions of animal-free testing and we are working to make our products 100% vegan and available as soon as 2024!
How far have we come?
What started out as a Ph.D. project in 2014 has, over these last four years, reached several customers and created an impact in various industries such as pharma, consumer, cosmetics, environment and chemical. Our patented technologies, ImmuLUNG™ and ImmuPHAGE™, can be utilized for characteristics such as phagocytic functions and macrophage polarisation. They have been constructed in-house to high standards of quality control to ensure reproducibility.
Our team
I am proud of what we have built over the last four years with the support of an excellent team comprising of scientists, researchers, business developers, marketing team and content creators. We started as 2 employees in 2019 and are now a team of 12 brilliant minds. Our shared belief for translational in vitro innovations is what makes us ImmuONE. With predicable human, animal-free testing models and services as our strength, we plan to grow our team in these super specialised areas.
What are our plans for the future?
We want to be known and trusted as your partners for in vitro inhalation and immune safety assessments. Every day, we are working towards bringing this expertise to you.
To know more about us and our services, get in touch