MedTECH Centre tenant Phagenesis appoints Chairman and CEO

Phagenesis Limited, a leader in technology for the treatment of stroke patients and newest tenant of msp's MedTECH Centre, has appointed Henry Hyde-Thomson as Chairman and Daniel Green as Chief Executive Officer.

Both bring a wealth of experience in growing young companies to the University of Manchester spinout. They will lead Phagenesis in the development of a new class of treatments for stroke victims suffering from dysphagia, a common condition that prevents or impairs the safe swallowing of food and drink.

Phagenesis’ technology is a device that delivers electrical pulses to the throat region that can “awaken” the brain to help restore swallowing function. At least 50% of stroke victims have impaired swallowing. Apart from a severe reduction in quality of life, dysphagia often leads to the inhalation of liquids and the development of life-threatening pneumonia.

In addition, the financial burden of dysphagia runs into thousands of pounds per patient in the first few weeks alone, and may continue indefinitely if the patients’ swallowing is not restored.

Daniel Green, formerly CEO of Repregen Ltd, said: “Phagenesis has a technology that had already shown its value in patients for whom there is no effective pharmaceutical or medical device treatment. Our challenge is to bring this technology to the benefit of patients and health services everywhere.”

Daniel co-founded Repregen as an Imperial College spinout in 2006. Before that, he was a venture capital investor at HBM Partners in Zurich, Switzerland, Dresdner Kleinwort, in London, UK, and MVM, also London, UK.

Henry Hyde-Thomson, Chairman of AngloScientific said: “This is an exciting time for Phagenesis as the company commercialises the results of 15 years development by the company’s scientific founder, Dr Shaheen Hamdy.”

Henry is chairman of 21Net, Phasor Solutions and MMIC Solutions, and was previously founder and chairman of Speech Machines, acquired by Philips in 2001.

Dr Conor Mulrooney COO and Phagenesis co-founder said: “We are fortunate to secure the skills and experience of Daniel and Henry and are now well positioned to bring our first products to market.”

Conor founded Phagenesis in 2007 with Dr Shaheen Hamdy, the inventor of the technology.

Ends.

About Phagenesis:

Phagenesis was founded in 2007 by Dr Conor Mulrooney and Dr Shaheen Hamdy to commercialise Dr Hamdy’s work as a consultant gastroenterologist at Salford Royal Hospital, part of the Manchester Academic Health Sciences Centre, University of Manchester. Dr Hamdy’s approach is to harness the brain’s own capacity for relearning functions that have been lost through brain damage (via “neuroplasticity” or “cortical remapping”). Focusing initially on the care of stroke patients as they recover in hospital (acute care), Dr Hamdy has painstakingly devised a method of delivering electrical signals from the pharynx (throat) along nerve cells directly to the relevant part of the brain. The results of his work have been published in top peer-reviewed scientific and medical journals, including The Lancet, the Nature group of publications, and Gastroenterology. Read the abstract from Dr Hamdy's latest research paper here

About dysphagia:

Dysphagia is a life-threatening condition. Patients with dysphagia can't swallow properly. This can lead to food or drink being inhaled, which greatly increases the chance of developing pneumonia. Many patients face the prospect of being fed through a tube for the remainder of their lives, seriously damaging their quality of life. Dysphagia can be mild or severe, and is most commonly caused by stroke and brain injury where the part of the brain responsible for swallowing has been damaged. Other causes include diseases like multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and motor neurone disease. Dysphagia is also associated generally with aging – 14% of Americans over the age of 60 have clinically significant dysphagia.