A new tenant for Unit 9
Birmingham BioTech
The award-winning med-tech incubator Unit 9 welcomed its seventh company, Birmingham Biotech LTD, in May 2024. The Birmingham-born group is a manufacturer and supplier of innovative medical diagnostic tests and has developed an antiviral nasal spray now being sold internationally.
This spray uses a patented gel-like formulation, Norizite®, to help prevent infection from the inhalation of airborne viruses. It does so by creating a barrier in the nasal cavity that physically traps viruses and removes them from the nose. The formula was first developed by a team at the University’s Healthcare Technologies Institute in 2020, to provide COVID-19 protection to frontline staff, before the researchers realised it could have far wider applications.
Because it uses compounds already approved by global regulatory bodies, it could be quickly commercialised. Enterprise filed a patent application for the spray technology, and subsequently helped negotiate licensing deals for Birmingham Biotech LTD to use the patent owned by the University. The spray was launched in Singapore in 2022, and has since been made available globally.
Birmingham Biotech LTD has operations in the UK, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. In partnership with the University of Birmingham, Birmingham Biotech LTD is committed to ensuring that patients in developing countries have access to the latest high-quality, affordable healthcare delivered through its rapid global supply chain.
The group is using Unit 9 as a base for the next phase of R&D, as it explores ways to apply its technology to other products such as throat sprays. Tenants have access to a business support programme and University equipment, as well as low-cost lab space.
“The strength of Unit 9 is that it supports emerging companies with facilities to do early research and development. That is important because R&D is such a black hole in terms of money when you’ve got a new product,” says Richard Moakes, a University of Birmingham researcher who helped develop the nasal spray formulation.
The ethos behind Unit 9 is that it helps the company grow before finding more solid foundations elsewhere. It is allowing Birmingham Biotech to be lean, while growing its product. And hopefully it will facilitate R&D so it can really establish itself as a brand.
Richard adds that being part of Unit 9 gives the group access to the wider med-tech scene that surrounds the University campus: “Birmingham Biotech is bringing in expertise, and helping to establish the local health tech goals we have within the area, while also feeding off the Birmingham ecosystem.”