Titanium catalysts and anaemia treatment emerge as top technologies
Following a morning of intense pitches at our Emerging Technologies Competition final in London on 25 June, we are delighted to announce not just one, but two overall winners.
MRC Human Nutrition Centre won in the life sciences session for their cutting-edge technology for treating anaemia. In the environment, materials and process chemistry session, Catalytic Technologies Ltd received the top prize for their titanium catalyst technology that offers far-reaching economic, safety and environmental impacts across the supply chain in the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic market.
Dr Richard Ward of Catalytic Technologies said about winning the competition: “I’m surprised – we really didn’t expect to win as the standard in the final was so high! Plastic bottles aren’t particularly sexy science either, so it’s really great to see our technology getting some recognition for the potential impact it can have.”
Dr Dora Pereira of MRC Human Nutrition Research echoed his feelings, saying that “it doesn’t feel real! We’ve been working on this iron supplement for nine years now, but up until now it has been hard to get people interested.”
Pitching for success
Second place in each of the categories went to the team from the University of Warwick with their application of a bio-inspired solution to cryopreserve cells to make much better use of precious donated blood, and Econic Technologies Ltd for another catalyst technology that utilises waste carbon dioxide in the production of pre-cursor chemicals for the polyurethanes and other industries.
It was the second year that we held the Emerging Technologies Competition with the aim of supporting the best pre-start-ups and start-ups developing chemistry-based technologies. The winners receive one-to-one mentoring from GlaxoSmithKline, Procter & Gamble, Croda and Catalent Applied Drug Delivery Institute as well as a cash injection of up to £10,000 into their technology.
The twenty shortlisted competition entrants pitched their technology in front of an open audience at our event at Burlington House. In addition, they had the opportunity to attend a variety of sessions throughout the afternoon, such as start-up case studies, commercialisation talks, a technology exhibition and networking opportunities.