Spinout spotlight: SilViA Bio

Led by Ed Curry and Melinda Pohle, with technology from Adam Brown's and David James' research groups, SilVia Bio collaborates with multinational companies to analyse, diagnose and propose solutions for advancing their biomanufacturing processes. 

Using its 'SilViA Bio' platform, the spinout enhances the mammalian cells used to create essential bioproducts like vaccines and gene therapies. By optimising these cell factories’, the technology is helping industry partners to achieve higher yields and produce more consistent, predictable manufacturing results. Ultimately, this will speed up the delivery of vital drugs to patients.

Ed Curry, CEO of SilViA Bio, provides a deeper overview of the spinout's technology, the support used to commercialise it, and the team's future plans.

Could you tell me about the research that underpinned the decision to launch SilViA Bio as a spinout company?

Our lab group at the University of Sheffield has a long standing history of working with global pharmaceutical companies to improve the manufacturing process of cutting-edge therapeutics like gene therapies and anti-cancer drugs. 

This foundational research now underpins the SilViA Bio platform, which allows us to work with pharmaceutical companies to quickly identify and fix problems within their drug manufacturing processes. It helps us provide solutions that can get drugs to market faster, ensuring patients have quicker access to a range of therapeutics at reduced costs.

What real-world problem is the company solving?

While there are many highly effective drugs in development, their complexity delays the journey to market, often taking years longer than necessary. This complexity means that they're really expensive to manufacture too. 

Our technology allows us to work with companies to make sure that these drugs are able to get to market in the time frames we need. If you can reduce the cost of making the drugs, then you can reduce the cost that's passed on to healthcare providers and patients as well. 

SilViA Bio incorporated in July 2025 and we’re starting to work with companies on initial contracts to get our technology into the market. So, we’re already starting to have an impact on drug manufacturing processes which feels really rewarding. 

Tell me about your experience of working with the University’s Commercialisation team - and the support you received?

I think with a lot of academic research, the pathways to real world impact are often quite slow, time consuming, and there can be a missing link between cutting-edge university research and industry application. However, taking part in the University’s Commercialisation Journey offered us a route to really scale our technology. It also helped to open up doors to collaborations with companies around the world.

I think the process of spinning out a company is quite daunting and complicated when you first start. I mean, you come straight out of a PhD and suddenly you’re part of a company and you've got all these new responsibilities. But the Commercialisation Team does a really good job of breaking down the process and offering support all the way through your journey - from having that first idea to actually launching the company. Our Commercialisation Manager, Fer Velázquez , has been incredibly patient and understanding with us. She has talked us through the whole process and allowed us to make that transition from PhD students naturally.

We've benefited from plenty of training opportunities, funding, training courses, and introductions to key people, which altogether have really helped to speed things up. You’re very much supported at all the different stages, right from the start to potentially the end of it.

What challenges did you overcome? And have you gained any new skills from being involved in the Commercialisation Journey?

I finished my PhD at the end of 2023, and then went straight into my first commercially focused role - so that was quite an interesting transition.

It’s a huge learning process and you have to adopt a completely different mindset. Academic thinking is detail-driven, while the commercial world moves very quickly - and you have to think about the long-term benefits. I had to learn how to communicate the value of what we do to companies and large audiences, and that is very different from communicating to an academic audience. It’s a learning curve and a big challenge but something that PhD students are often very capable of doing - and that’s where the Commercialisation Journey can help piece it all together. The support I've been offered has been massively beneficial. The advice we received from other Sheffield spinouts has helped us along the way too. 

What is SilViA Bio's most important milestone to date, and what is your long-term vision for the company?

We’ve successfully translated our core academic research into a working technology platform, now proven with first industrial partners. So, taking something that was purely from our labs and now seeing it have actual benefits within large companies has provided crucial validation and confidence in what we're doing moving forward. 

We want to become leaders in biomanufacturing, alleviating the problem of effective drugs failing to reach the market due to production inconsistencies. In doing so, providing a pathway for these cutting edge drugs to get to patients quicker. Our 10 year plan is to become the leading enabler of that change

What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about commercialising their research?

I'd say at least have an initial conversation with the Commercialisation Team. There's lots of options, whether that's part-time or just going through some training courses to really find out if it's for you. But if you don't take those opportunities and have those conversations, you'll never know. There’s lots of different roles within the Commercialisation Journey too - you can stay as the scientific person or you can lead the business side of things. It's not one universal experience, but if you don't have that conversation with the team you won't be able to find out whether it's for you in the first place.

To find out more about the Commercialisation Journey, visit their website or contact the team directly at commercialisationteam@sheffield.ac.uk.