ApconiX is Honoured with the King’s Award for Enterprise for Innovation
ApconiX is delighted to announce that we have been honoured with a King’s Award for Enterprise for Innovation 2025.
ApconiX was founded by Professor Ruth Roberts, Dr Michael Morton and Dr Richard Knight, colleagues with the drive and ambition to create a world-renowned drug safety company. The journey began with the idea to provide life science companies with access to high quality drug safety expertise, normally available only in large pharmaceutical companies. ApconiX has previously won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade in 2022 and a King’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade in 2024.
Celebrating ten years of trading this year, ApconiX has grown to a strong team of over 100, helping clients all over the world make better decisions on drug safety.
There are three key elements to the business: a consultancy group that advises clients on drug safety; a laboratory that screens new compounds for cardiac and CNS safety effects; and our Safety Science Group that combines toxicology expertise and advanced data science, offering customized Acuity® target safety assessments (TSAs), modality focused reports as well as problem-solving expertise.
We were awarded The Kings Award for Enterprise for Innovation for iSLA, an innovative assay which improves drug development safety and success rates. iSLA was developed over 3 years and is based on original open-source research carried out by our team in our laboratory. This team included Dr Kim Rockley who won the Bionow Rising Star Award in 2022 for her work in this field.
iSLA, the ApconiX in vitro Seizure Liability Assay, predicts if a compound in drug discovery or development might cause seizures by measuring the electrical activity in human-derived neuronal stem cells (hiPSC) using microelectrode array (MEA) and by screening a panel of 15 seizure-associated ion channels using automated patch clamp electrophysiology.
There is a pressing need to develop new drugs to treat conditions such as cancer, arthritis and neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Disease and Epilepsy.
Toxicity is a major challenge in drug research and development. A pharmaceutical company will invest 100s of millions to billions of pounds in a drug, only to fail in clinical trials. Identifying a compound that may cause seizure early could save billions, enabling those funds to be diverted to compounds more likely to succeed and save lives.
iSLA has the potential to make a significant contribution to reducing animal testing.
Professor Ruth Roberts, Director, and Co-founder of ApconiX commented, “Receiving the King’s Award is a tremendous honour and testament to the hard work, creativity and ambition of the whole team.”
Dr Michael Morton added, “Our aim is to find better solutions to identifying effective medicines quicker and at lower overall cost and in sustainable and ethical manner.”
The research was published in the Journal of Toxicological Sciences in October 2023:
The King’s Awards for Enterprise, previously known as The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise, were renamed in 2023 to reflect His Majesty The King’s desire to continue the legacy of HM Queen Elizabeth II’s by recognising outstanding UK businesses. The Award programme, now in its 59th year, is the most prestigious business award in the country, with successful businesses able to use the esteemed King’s Awards Emblem for the next five years.
About the King’s Awards for Enterprise
The King’s Awards for Enterprise are the most prestigious business awards in the UK. The awards were first established in 1965 and since then over 8000 companies have achieved a King’s Award. 2025 marks the third year of The King’s Awards for Enterprise, reflecting His Majesty The King’s desire to continue the legacy of HM Queen Elizabeth II’s by recognising outstanding UK businesses.
The awards celebrate the success of exciting and innovative businesses which are leading the way with pioneering products or services, delivering impressive social mobility programmes, or showing their commitment to excellent sustainable development practices.
This year 197 businesses have been recognised for their contribution to International Trade, Innovation, Sustainable Development and Promoting Opportunity (through Social Mobility). A total of 199 Awards are made with two companies being recognised with two Awards.
The King’s Awards for Enterprise 2023 include:
- 116 Awards for International Trade
- 46 Awards for Innovation
- 27 Awards for Sustainable Development
- 10 Awards for Promoting Opportunity (through social mobility)
The King’s Awards for Enterprise 2026 open for applications on 6th May and close 9th September 2025. Almost all UK businesses (including non-profit) can apply, and the application process is free. All applications must be made online, and organisations may apply for more than one category. All entry forms, eligibility criteria and information on how to apply is available on here
