Mat Upton (CSO) and Gordon Barker (CEO) travelled to London to represent Amprologix at the Barclays University Demo Day, part of the Barclays Entrepreneurs Festival 2026.
Being selected
The Barclays University Demo Day brings together spinout companies from across the country to pitch to investors and connect with the wider innovation community. This year, Amprologix was one of 43 companies from 26 universities selected to attend, chosen from over 200 applicants. Our antibiotic development story was selected to be showcased alongside 14 other life sciences companies.
Gordon pitched alongside these 14 other life sciences spinouts in a session supported by Parkwalk, a leading investor for university spinouts in the UK. The session brought together companies working across a range of health challenges, with Amprologix highlighting our approach to antibiotic discovery in a field where new drugs are urgently needed, and few companies are focusing on this area.
The day
The event opened with a panel discussion on the UK innovation and investment landscape, hosted by Barclays Innovation Banking and featuring Anne Dobrée (Parkwalk), Riam Kanso (Conception X) and Tom Adeyoola (Innovate UK). The conversation covered the challenges and opportunities facing early stage spinouts, the role of universities in commercialising research, and the current optimism around UK spinout investment. Although the atmosphere surrounding antibiotic development funding often appears bleak, it’s always encouraging to hear positive stories, and to be reminded of the support and enthusiasm that exists for this type of research.
Why pitching matters for Amprologix
Roughly 38% of companies that have pitched at previous Barclays events have gone on to secure investment within six months. We are actively working to be part of that statistic in order to continue moving NI01 forward at a pace that reflects the urgency of the AMR problem. Beyond NI01, we have an AI guided antibiotic discovery pipeline designed to identify and develop follow-on candidates. Our goal is not to produce just one antibiotic, but a series of related compounds that could help patients facing infections that existing treatments can no longer clear.
What’s next?
We’re always looking for opportunities to spread the word about our work and our vision for antibiotic development. If you want to learn more about NI01, or our AI pipeline and background research please visit our publications page or contact us for more details.
