Chemistry has a reputation as a Cinderella subject, that for most of us begins and ends with the white flame of magnesium above a Bunsen burner and swotting up on the periodic table.
But behind the stereotype of slightly eccentric white-coated professors lies a tragic secret.
“Almost all of the people who taught me chemistry are dead,” says DeepMatter chief executive Mark Warne, a revelation that doesn’t seem shocking until it dawns on me that we’re about the same age, and even most of my school teachers are very much alive.
Glasgow-based DeepMatter is a game-changer for the pharmaceuticals industry because it will save time and money on the repetitive tasks chemists perform, speed up drug development, bring treatments to market more quickly and potentially save more patients’ lives.
But it will also improve the lives of the unheralded heroes we count upon to produce the drugs that might one day cure diseases such as cancer and Alzheimers.
Warne adds: “In the 1960s they were bathed in benzine, carcinogens and got cancer very young. Chemistry is an inherently dangerous business – to make this stuff, we use materials in the chemistry industry that are not very nice.”
He explains why, combined with robotic technology, DeepMatter’s software will cut out much of the repeated handling of toxic materials in a lab system that hasn’t really changed in two centuries. There are 500,000 chemists in the world, and if most of them pass on knowledge to others on an ad hoc and piecemeal basis, this creates plenty of margin for error – which Warne describes as “a $28 billion problem”.
Using DeepMatter’s DigitalGlassware, every detail, every error and every outcome of experiments can now be recorded and accessed via cloud computing in any lab, anywhere in the world. That means there is no need for repetition and less need for contact with harmful substances.
“We have to move to an environment that has better health and safety, better environmental sustainability,” says Warne. “So if you embed this knowledge and if you embed some of what’s dangerous in the environment that’s not touched by humans, you physically improve that proposition.
He tells how the female head of chemistry in a lab he ran years ago announced one day she was pregnant. “We said congratulations but you can’t go in the lab any more,” says Warne. “Now, there’s no reason why she she shouldn’t be able to sit behind her laptop and do things that control hardware robotics of the other side of a glass wall.”
AstraZeneca is the first of the major companies which has formally recognised this potential by announcing a partnership with DeepMatter this week. In the US in particular, clinicians are under pressure to practise ‘value-based healthcare’ by proving the drugs they use are the most effective.
Warne says: “The drug discovery cycle is probably 12 years, from inception through to marketable drug. Patents are normally filed during that period and have a 20-year lifespan, most drugs come off patent two years into peak sales.
“There’s a seven year peak cycle, so the value is being lost. so when someone introduces value based payment there’s even less value, so I think the pharma industry is motivated to think, how can we cut two to three years out of the development cycle, to mean we get a better economic return.”
Big pharma will not spend less on R&D as a result, Warne believes, it just means they will be able to investigate more potentially life-saving treatments.
He says: “The more drugs they bring to market the more revenues they ultimately will earn. There are fewer blockbusters than there used to be, so they have to push more candidates forward, each generating less income, and so if they can be more cost effective, to get more drugs to market, then I think they’ll be motivated to do that. If pharma companies can be more confident about the use of their resources, they won’t do less chemistry, they will do more on the same budget.”
DeepMatter was formed in 2013, with the well-known scientist Professor Lee Cronin among its founders. The University of Glasgow academic’s areas of interest range from digital chemistry to alien life and Warne describes him as “an ideas machine – he doesn’t look at stuff at say that’s not possible – everything is possible”.
The company made its first revenue this year, thanks partly to the acquisition of well established life sciences business Infochem in Munich, but has yet to turn a profit. Warne moved to the company in July 2018 from IP Group, a venture capital firm which has been a longstanding investor in DeepMatter, so he can be confident that its backers will be patient. They will have been heartened by Monday’s 58% share price rise after the AstraZeneca news. After an oversubscribed £4 million share placing early this year, the company has money to spend marketing its products. To complement Digital Glassware, it is also developing hardware which Warne describes as “like a Fitbit for chemistry, its monitoring all the time for insights”.
“We think there’s a real opportunity to turn over several million pounds in the couple of years,” says Warne. “We’ve got a strong cash position, we’ve got our first revenues in the group, so we have transitioned from having no revenues in the group at all, to having revenues from this unit and some that we brought in from a unit with an established customer base. We are still a loss-making business because we’re a technology growth proposition.”
Warne praises the support available to life sciences businesses in Scotland but concedes that investment may be spread too thinly. Angel investors plough relatively small amounts into a lot of start-ups and the weaker ones are not left to die, while stronger ones struggle to grow quickly enough, he believes.
A greater obstacle to the work is recruitment. There’s a relatively small pool of talent in Scotland and while Brexit may not prevent UK firms from hiring EU workers, it could put them off coming regardless. Warne believes the certainty of knowing you can settle your family and move freely between jobs in the UK is a big draw. Uncertainty about their next career step could persuade many to stay in the EU, he fears.
Ultimately, the most tangible results of DeepMatter’s work could be counted in lives prolonged and saved because vital treatments were brought to market more quickly.
Warne says: “If I could take two years out of drug development, because of the way they do chemistry, we’ll have created all the value we need to, forever.”
