EUROPEAN  TISSUE  REPAIR  SOCIETY

RENOVO LIMITED

Renovo is a biopharmaceutical product company whose business focus is the development of drugs that exploit recently discovered mechanisms of scar prevention and wound healing acceleration: two areas of huge unmet medical need given current standard care. Renovo was founded in October 2000 by Professor Mark Ferguson and Dr Sharon O'Kane, both from the University of Manchester, and is currently based in the Manchester Incubator Building, where it occupies state-of-the-art laboratory and clinical facilities, and currently employs approximately 50 full-time staff. The founders of Renovo share approximately 30 years of University-based scientific and clinical research in the field of scarring and wound healing, and the Company has recruited outstanding employees, at all levels, Boards, Scientific and Clinical Advisors.

Renovo has established its own in-house Clinical Trials Unit with a staff of surgeons, doctors, clinical trial manager, monitors and nurses led by the Clinical Director, Dr Mike Davies, who was previously Clinical Project Manager in Experimental Medicine for Pfizer Tissue Repair Group. Renovo has a number of novel drugs under active development. Its lead drug for acceleration of healing and prevention of scarring has successfully completed early clinical studies in hundreds of volunteers and is currently in Phase 2 clinical development. Another, different drug, for the acceleration of chronic wound healing is about to enter Phase 2 whilst 4 new drugs for prevention of scarring and/or acceleration of healing will enter Phase 1 clinical trials within the next two years.

Renovo has also established an outstanding laboratory research and development capability under the leadership of Dr Sharon O'Kane, Executive Director of Research and Development. The laboratory infrastructure provides full support including biochemical, genomic, proteomic, molecular and histological analyses for all Renovo's ongoing clinical trials. The laboratory team are also rapidly progressing a number of new drug candidates towards clinical development.

Renovo's drugs are based on a rigorous scientific understanding of the fundamental mechanisms underlying wound repair and regeneration and are protected by a number of worldwide Patents and Patent Applications. Renovo has established a major platform in wound and scar genomics and proteomics, in order to provide not only future targets for drug discovery, but additionally diagnostic and prognostic markers for the rate and quality of wound healing. Renovo has recruited an outstanding group of scientists covering disciplines such as chemistry, genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, in vivo biology, biochemistry and molecular biology and occupies new laboratories with state of the art equipment and infrastructure.

Renovo originated as a spin-out company from the University of Manchester, which is a shareholder and which has assigned a portfolio of patents and patent applications to the Company. Renovo values its links with University and Hospital researchers and even as a new small Company is involved in collaborative studies. Recently Renovo was successful in being awarded a UK Government LINK Grant (linking outstanding academic groups and companies) by the Medical Research Council and the Department of Trade and Industry, UK. This grant valued at £1.3M will allow a collaborative research investigatoin between Renovo and Professor Andrew Boulton, Department of Medicine, University of Manchester and Professor Charles McCollum, Department of Surgery, University of Manchester entitled 'Genomic differences between acute and chronic wound healing'. Renovo also funds a collaborative PhD Studentship at the University of Manchester and UMIST and is engaged in discussions with a number of clinical collaborators about its forthcoming clinical trials.

Renovo is a venture backed biotechnology company. It received £8M of first round financing in October 2000 led by Atlas Ventures and including JP Morgan Partners: both outstanding venture capital companies with a distinguished track record in the life sciences. Renovo recently (December 2002) closed a second round financing of £23M led by Healthcap from Stockholm, Sweden and including Care Capital from Princeton, New Jersey, BioVeda and Temasek fromSingapore, who joined Atlas and JP Morgan as new investors in the Company.

Renovo's Business Strategy is to discover and develop drugs that prevent scarring or accelerate healing following all forms of injury or wounding. The Company's initial focus is the skin, but it is broadening its interests and activities to include sites such as the eye, brain, guts and reproductive organs (for strictures and adhesions) etc. Renovo plans to discover and advance these drugs both through laboratory and clinical development, but will likely seek commercialisation partners when in advanced stages of clinical development. Renovo is also open to research collaborations and other partnerships at earlier stages in the development process. Renovo's products will be developed as drugs (both topical and systemic). Such drugs will be compatible with current practices of care including surgical closures, dressings, artificial skin substitutes etc.

The current Senior Management of Renovo include: Professor Mark Ferguson as Chief Executive Officer, Dr Sharon O'Kane as Executive Director of Research & Development, Dr Mike Davies as Clinical Director and Mr Rob Cridland as Business Development and Finance Director. Further information is available on the website:

http://www.renovo.com