On the cover: Fozia Saleem, chief executive of Magnitude Biosciences

The worms that turned

Allow me to talk to you in crayon…

Because that’s how Dr Fozia Saleem found herself selling worms – and the trademarked WormGazer – and promoting their benefits to the world of medical science, research and development from County Durham.

Fozia is Magnitude Biosciences’ chief executive, hired by the company three years ago to lead product development, delivery, growth and profits.

The firm is a drug development research organisation based at Business Durham’s NETPark science and technology hub near Sedgefield, and concentrates on life sciences, neurodegenerative diseases and healthy ageing solutions.

A Durham University spin-out, it has developed the imaging technology WormGazer to utilise the C. elegans worms and lead research and essential data for new drug therapy development. C. elegans exist naturally, but have been used as models for studying age-related diseases for nearly 50 years.

The worm population at Magnitude has been growing for more than a decade, so they can create their own human disease variants for tests.

Fozia has a PhD in molecular physiology from the University of Edinburgh and a distinguished 15-year career with senior leadership experience across the medical, pharmaceutical and nicotine industries with the likes of GlaxoSmithKline, British American Tobacco and Broughton Life Sciences.

She visited Magnitude looking for a new challenge, on the recommendation of finance house Northstar Ventures, and met founders Dr Chris Saunter and Professor David Weinkove.

And she was immediately blinded by their science.

Fozia says: “I remember Alex Buchan, from Northstar Ventures, asking me if I was still interested in an opportunity in the North East because he had a portfolio company that could do with some help.

“I said yes, and he told me, ‘it’s good that you have a science PhD background because you’ll need to be able to talk science with the two founders.

“I came down on a Friday afternoon – those afternoons are quite creative and busy because of the lifecycle of the worms, and it was lovely to visit in the middle of all that energy.

“Chris took me to the ‘Man Cave Rooms’, where all the tech and magic happens.

“I only had about two-and-a-half hours, and Chris talked almost non-stop about the technology and science.

“He was saying it all in physics-speak, and while I’ve got a PhD, I’ve basically been in management my entire career.

“A lot of the stuff he was saying was going way over my head.

“I was trying to get to know him well enough to turn around and eventually say, ‘Chris, explain it in crayon!’

“I said, ‘talk to me in crayon, and I’ll get you, I promise; I will follow you, but I’m not as smart as you, and I don’t get it as fast as you’.

“I remember he was so enthusiastic and really passionate about the tech – it was actually really cute.

“He knew it inside out, and he believed in it too. That’s what pulled me in.”

When Fozia joined Magnitude, the company employed seven people.

Today, there are 22, and the work is piling up. Fozia says: “Chris and David are so clever and so smart.

“They’re responsible for all the company patents, the technology and the science.

“The foundation of the expertise comes from them.

“But they’re academics that didn’t have the background on how to scale-up and commercialise it.

“They did a fantastic job before I joined, and got close to £500,000 revenue, which we’ve grown since, and they did that through their own mettle without any commercial expertise.

“I was brought in for the scale-up side of it, and that’s what we’re now aiming to execute.”

Magnitude weathered the early days of development in Chris’ garden shed, before
moving into the university labs; survived COVID-19 lockdowns and the dangers of
moving an entire lab across County Durham in seven trips in a family estate car; and secured vital funding from British Business Bank as interest in its WormGazer technology increased.

“Chris knew the science inside out, and he believed in it too; that’s what pulled me in”

And as NETPark continues to expand with new buildings, Magnitude is also looking to grow from its current base on the site.

For now, in a small contained laboratory, PhD student Chad Yanyatan quietly shows off a fresh batch of tiny worms.

Chad, who originates from Kean University in New Jersey, is one of 12 students on the Marie Curie European fellowship, as part of the NervSpan consortium that Magnitude belongs to, which aims to train young researchers in neurobiology using the nematode C. elegans as a model organism.

The tray on which they wriggle is the size of a pack of cards. On it, there are around 60 small, liquid-filled holes which, to the human eye, look docile and inactive.

They are placed in the WormGazer and, when Chad positions the microscope to look deep into the holes, these circles and creatures come to life.

The worms flit and flicker across the screen and perform one last dance before they are incubated and stored.

The plan now is to increase the scale of these experiments.

“Early drug discovery tests have always been done on just cells – but with the worms, you can start to understand a whole lifecycle”

Fozia says: “The industry has used various different models to mimic age-related diseases and bring these products to market; worms are the best model.

“If you try to do the same experiment with mice, it would take more than two years

“With worms, you can speed up the process and do it in weeks.

“We’re a hell of a lot faster and a hell of a lot cheaper.

“I always say, if I’m trying to explain what we do, that we help researchers fail fast and fail cheaply.

“If the drugs are not going to work, you fail much earlier and you can avoid failing in clinical research; if you fail in clinic, you’ve wasted millions.

“But if you fail a lot earlier in the drug discovery pipeline, you screen out your false positives, because this is the first time you get whole organism data.

“You have to remember, this is a full, living, breathing organism.

“It’s having hundreds of babies a week; it’s got a full physiology; it has 80 per cent genetic homology with humans, so it is translatable.

“Early drug discovery tests have always been done on just cells – that’s a 2D model.

“It’s not interactive, there are no reproductive organs, no muscles, no guts, none of that stuff.

“With the worms, you’re getting the whole organism; it’s multiple progeny and you can start to understand a whole lifecycle.

“If this drug starts to impact on this tiny worm, maybe it will work on its babies and future generations as well.”

Fozia recently stepped back from her role as vice-chair of the Newcastle arm of The Lifted Project – the national organisation helping female founders gain access to much-needed growth funding – to concentrate on Magnitude’s expansion.

This year has seen increased investment in the firm, which has allowed the scientists in the building to increase the efficiency and spend of their work and research.

Maven Capital Partners, Northstar Ventures and Innovate UK have ploughed £706,000 into the endeavour.

And while Fozia continues to engage with the outside world through her own version of
crayon talk, the hard work continues in the labs, where they are testing compounds faster and cheaper than traditional methods.

It will potentially save millions in clinical trials.

She adds: “The team can do the science, make the magic happen and file the patents – I’m the one trying to make sure we’ve got enough money, we’ve got the right strategy and we’re getting the right clients.

“If we have magic like this, how are we communicating it? How are we telling people?

That’s the next task.

“The fact we managed to get to high throughput scale-up within six months is incredible

“I’ve worked in commercial, corporate pharmaceutical companies – we were never
able to get this far, this fast.

“That Chris, Dave and the team have pulled this together is extraordinary.

“It’s been a real team effort to make it happen.

“And what happens next is going to be so exciting.”

Find out more at magnitudebiosciences.com / LinkedIn: Magnitude Biosciences Ltd