Alumni winning TBF Prize 2024.

Cambridge Judge Entrepreneurship Centre alums win 2024 Trinity Bradfield Prizes

30 January 2024

The article at a glance

3 biotech businesses founded by alumni of Cambridge Judge Entrepreneurship Centre programmes have been awarded the top three spots at the prestigious Trinity Bradfield Prize competition run by the Bradfield Centre and Trinity College, University of Cambridge.

The overall winner of the £10k prize was Cambridge Nucleomics. Cambridge Nucleomics is a biotech spinoff from the University of Cambridge which offers a fully automated point-of-care sepsis test in under an hour. They help big pharmas, biotech companies and clinical researchers with a unique value proposition for accurate, fast and direct quantification of native RNA. Their mission is to quantify all short and long RNAs in one simple measurement by 2025, with the vision to build an innovative platform technology company for the RNA era of personalised and precision medicine. CEO and co-founder, Hendrik Runge PhD, is an alumnus of Cambridge Judge Entrepreneurship Centre’s EnterpriseTECH STAR (2019) as is his co-founder Mohammed Alawami (2021). The Cambridge Nucleomics team also participated in Accelerate Cambridge (2021).   

Second place and a prize of £5k was awarded to Compound Hound. The company produces a breath sensor which helps determine if a newborn is suffering from jaundice. Founder Melanie Whitfield PhD is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge and an alumna of EnterpriseTECH (2021) programme, as well as contributing as an inventor on an earlier programme.

The Hellings prize of £5k was given to BioTryp Therapeutics which has developed a new class of biofilm inhibitors that provide an alternative to traditional antibiotic treatments. Ashraf Zarkan PhD, a Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, is one of the recent EnterpriseTECH inventors (2024) and co-founder, Cameron Croft, is also an EnterpriseTECH (2023) alumnus. 

We are delighted to see the success of these alumni and hope that these richly deserved awards enable them to achieve even greater heights with their respective businesses. It is gratifying to have played a part in helping these entrepreneurs transform their innovations into meaningful real-world applications. Our thanks too to the Trinity Bradfield Prize organisers for creating this opportunity for science and tech entrepreneurs.

Professor Stelios Kavadias, Co-Director of the Cambridge Judge Entrepreneurship Centre

The finalists will also benefit from mentoring and complementary membership of The Bradfield Centre at Cambridge Science Park where the competition was staged. The Chair of the Judges, Sir Greg Winter, also announced a new prize for next year’s competition.

The Angel Prize will be awarded to the team that can demonstrate the most progress towards their stated milestones, and both 2022 and 2023 finalists are eligible.