Partners: Babraham Institute
Aitua has a 10-year intellectual property commercialisation agreement with the Babraham Institute, which will provide one of the core sources of IP for Aitua’s companies.
The Babraham Institute is a charitable life sciences research organisation, sponsored by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). It carries out world-leading research and advanced training relevant to the biomedical, biotechnological, pharmaceutical and healthcare communities, and underpins the healthcare responsibility of the BBSRC.
Research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of cell signalling and gene regulation that underlie normal cellular processes, and how their failure or abnormality may lead to disease. This has provided insight into conditions like hypertension, cardiac arrhythmia and heart failure, infertility, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and bipolar disorders such as manic depressive illness. Institute scientists are striving to find cures for conditions where there is currently no 
treatment or where existing treatment is not fully effective. They aim to provide novel targets for therapeutic or diagnostic development and scientific discoveries that will improve the quality of life.
The Institute employs around 350 staff and its research spend is projected at £24m for 2006/07.