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Making life science life changing
Annual report and accounts 2025
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Contents
| Forewords | 1 |
|---|---|
| Trustees' report | 3 |
| People report | 13 |
| Strategic report | 17 |
| Risk report | 19 |
| Financial review | 21 |
| Investment portfolio review | 22 |
| Reserves policy | 23 |
| Carbon report | 24 |
| Structure, governance | 26 |
| and management | |
| 2025 accounts | 36 |
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Forewords
Note from the Chair of the LifeArc Board of Trustees
The past year at LifeArc has truly been one of real momentum and progress. Our CEO Sam Barrell, our executive management team and the Board have further focused our efforts in rare diseases and drug-resistant infections. We have also expanded our portfolio to include funding and supporting clinical research with potential for near-term impact, alongside our preclinical work and efforts to support and strengthen the wider research community.
This clear strategic focus will further enhance our ability to improve the lives of patients and families who are affected today, as well as those of the future. For example, our drug repurposing work has potential to expand the use of pre-existing therapies for other conditions to people with rare diseases, safely and quickly. In the preclinical space, our C-Further partnership is building an innovative drug discovery pipeline to advance drugs specifically designed for children and young people with cancer.
Our partnerships have grown further this year, reflective of our evolving cross-sector ambitions. In October, we co-hosted the inaugural Global Antimicrobial Resistance Innovators’ Conference (GAMRIC), connecting researchers, academics and industry professionals from around the world to address antimicrobial resistance. It was encouraging to see new ideas and collaborations continuing to grow and accelerate.
We made important steps in our relocation projects for both London- and Edinburgh-based staff. Our upcoming move to a new building in Judd Street will provide a centre of excellence in the heart of London’s Knowledge Quarter, serving as a hub for our research, operational and engagement activities and transforming our ability to collaborate with the wider community.
September brought One LifeArc Day, an opportunity for our team to reflect on our progress and look ahead to the future. Seeing the energy across the organisation and the pride people take in their work was genuinely inspiring. It was clear how strongly everyone connects to the role they play in delivering impact for patients.
Finally, it’s fantastic to have tangible examples of our work reaching patients. For instance, this year saw the approval of Gomekli[®] , developed by SpringWorks Therapeutics, a company we co-founded, for the rare genetic disorder neurofibromatosis. We also saw recruitment ramping up for Bio-Hermes-002, a trial we co-fund, to explore the potential of a finger prick-based test for the earlier detection of Alzheimer’s disease. Beyond giving hope for patients, this success provides important proof that we can drive change, opening the fields of rare disease and drug-resistant infection research to the wider research community and new partners to get involved.
I’m incredibly proud of our team and all we achieved in 2025 and excited about what’s to come."
Dr Ian Gilham Chair of the LifeArc Board of Trustees
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Note from our Chief Executive Officer
I’ve worked with patients and families affected by devastating health conditions throughout my career. These people can’t wait the typical 15 years for a new treatment to reach them – their need is immediate.
This is especially true for people with rare diseases and drug-resistant infections. By 2050, bacterial antimicrobial resistance is predicted to be linked to more than 8 million deaths a year. Meanwhile, around 300 million people worldwide have a rare disease, of which only 5% have an approved treatment. In both cases, promising research is often held back by complexity, cost and systemic barriers.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Over the past year at LifeArc, we’ve sharpened our strategic focus on rare diseases and drug-resistant infections, so that our strong combination of expertise, resource and partnerships with like-minded organisations around the world can achieve the biggest impact for patients.
Another exciting change is the expansion of our clinical research portfolio. This includes launching our Rare Disease Clinical Trials Programme, which will fund and support clinical phase projects with the ability to improve lives, potentially within the next 5 years.
This report includes a range of stories that reflect the progress made over the past year. The latest round of our collaborative funding initiative PACE, for example, is supporting drug development projects to tackle antimicrobial resistance. The expansion of our data science capabilities will help to realise the potential of health data – currently fragmented and inaccessible – to drive new treatment and diagnostic options for those with an unmet need. In the clinic, 3-year-old Ollie amazed doctors with his progress after being the first person with Hunter syndrome to receive a revolutionary gene therapy, developed with LifeArc funding.
I believe in the real impact science can have on people’s lives. If we want to deliver meaningful discoveries for patients more rapidly, we need to be willing to challenge our assumptions, change our thinking and innovate with greater intent. We need to think like patients and their families. We need to match their passion and motivation.
I’m grateful for our talented team at LifeArc and all they have achieved this year to turn scientific discoveries into life-changing innovations. And I’m confident that the steps we have taken will enable us to deliver even greater impact for patients, their families and the wider community in the years ahead."
Dr Sam Barrell, CBE Chief Executive Officer of LifeArc
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Who we are and what we do
Science offers hope. But, too often, discoveries that could make a difference stall on their journey to the clinic, impeded by hurdles at key points along the translational pathway. LifeArc exists to help overcome these challenges and ensure life-changing innovations reach the people who need them, more quickly and efficiently.
We do this by:
- conducting and funding innovative research
At LifeArc, we have one clear goal: transforming the lives of people with rare diseases and drug-resistant infections.
The challenges these people face are urgent and complex, including the need for faster diagnoses, better treatments and improved access to innovations.
Our vision
A world where everyone with a rare disease or drug-resistant infection can get the life-changing treatment they urgently need
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providing scientific support through our platforms and in-house experts
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working closely with partners to convene expertise, skills and resource and strengthen the translational research ecosystem
As a self-funded medical research organisation, we can focus on science with great potential for impact and take on challenges that might otherwise be overlooked due to their complexity or high-risk nature. Our priorities are informed by the needs of people affected by rare diseases and drug-resistant infections, so that we can drive progress and deliver meaningful change for patients worldwide.
Our purpose
To forge new paths that take pioneering science further, beyond barriers and uncertainty, delivering new solutions that improve and save lives
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Strategy and achievements
LifeArc has always focused on tackling complex, overlooked health challenges, with a primary focus on advancing science through the preclinical stages of the research pipeline.
Throughout 2025, we sharpened our focus to tackle rare diseases and drug-resistant infections. We also made important steps to expand our portfolio to include funding and supporting clinical research alongside our preclinical and ecosystem work, which will enable us to reach patient impact faster. We look forward to sharing more about our new strategic direction in 2026.
Strategic partnership remains central to our work. One of our keystone collaborations is Our Future Health (OFH), collecting data and samples from up to 5 million volunteers to find new ways to prevent, detect and treat diseases. We launched our first study using the programme’s unique collection of health data in 2025, having grown our in-house data science capabilities in recent years.
developed a library with more than 700 diseases
The study aims to identify cohorts of people living with rare conditions and to analyse long-term health outcomes in adult survivors of childhood cancer. So far, we have processed over 1.3 billion data entries and developed a library with more than 700 diseases.
processed over data entries
1.3 billion
We launched our Patient Engagement Strategy this year, marking our commitment to integrate lived experience into our work. The strategy builds on our existing efforts to position rare disease and global health communities as active partners at every stage of our research journey, from helping to shape priorities and inform early-stage research, to guiding funding decisions and clinical trial design.
We made great progress in our headquarters relocation project, including signing the Agreement for Lease and developing initial designs and layouts of our new, purpose-designed home. The building, located at 105 Judd Street, is in the heart of London’s Knowledge Quarter and will strengthen our ability to collaborate across the life sciences sector to translate promising scientific discoveries into new tests, treatments and cures.
We were also delighted to see LifeArc-funded research bringing new hope to patients and families living with rare diseases. This includes 3-year-old Ollie, who became the first person to receive a revolutionary gene therapy for the ultra-rare, life-threatening Hunter syndrome. LifeArc provided critical funds to enable the first-in-human trial. Several months on, Ollie has fully recovered from the procedure, and his parents and clinical team are excited by his progress.
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Our Translational Challenges
Across 2025, we continued to channel much of our research efforts through our Translational Challenges. These are healthcare areas where patient needs are urgent and progress is slow, but the science is ripe for translation.
Rare Disease
Global Health
MND & Rare Dementias
Chronic & Rare Respiratory Diseases
Childhood Cancer
Rare Diseases
Drug-resistant infections
Childhood Cancer
We’re focused on better treatments, better trials and better decisions for the more than 400,000 children and young adults diagnosed with cancer globally each year.
Rare Disease
We’re taking a holistic approach to rare conditions, by tackling systemic issues and supporting an ecosystem that removes barriers to progress.
Highlights from 2025 include:
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convening a summit of world-leaders and advocates to explore what steps must be taken to maintain the rapid development of CAR T-cell therapies so that more children with solid tumours can access and benefit from them
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funding CAR T Pathfinder, a £9 million, 5-year project that will support a multi-centre trial to improve access to CAR T-cell therapy for children with neuroblastoma
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GOSH Charity joining us and Cancer Research Horizons as a core funder of C-Further, bringing the total commitment to £37 million to advance the translation of new targeted therapeutics for children and young people with cancer
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delivering 5 Paediatric Therapeutic Development Workshops, alongside Cancer Research UK, Innovative Therapies for Children and Adolescents with Cancer (ITCC) and Cancer Grand Challenges team PROTECT, to drive change in childhood cancer types with the greatest unmet needs
Highlights from 2025 include:
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publishing “Accelerating R&D for Rare Disease in the UK”, our report with Genetic Alliance UK, calling for urgent action with targeted recommendations that could change the lives of the millions of people living with rare diseases
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launching the LifeArc Rare Disease Clinical Trials Programme which will provide up to £5 million in funding per proposal and comprehensive wraparound support to teams developing treatments, diagnostics and technologies for people with rare disease
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EU and US approvals granted for the drug Gomekli[®] to treat people with rare disease neurofibromatosis – the drug, which was previously shelved, was rescued by SpringWorks Therapeutics with founding investment from LifeArc
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Chronic and Rare Respiratory Disease
We’re working to reduce the time it takes to receive an accurate diagnosis, accelerate development of diseasemodifying treatments, improve management of resistant infections and build a connected ecosystem that delivers lasting impact.
Highlights from 2025 include:
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promising new antimicrobial drugs designed to treat people with cystic fibrosis entering the next stage of development, thanks to a landmark agreement between Japanese pharmaceutical firm Shionogi & Co Ltd and BioVersys, the company we supported to develop these drugs with our partners through the Cystic Fibrosis Antimicrobial Resistance Syndicate
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the EMBARC-AIRNET trial, led by the University of Dundee and which we support, opening for recruitment across 10 study sites, testing whether existing drugs could be repurposed to treat inflammation in people with bronchiectasis, which drives worse symptoms and poorer outcomes
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funding the HERON study to explore how HealthTech can improve the management of respiratory conditions in primary and community care
Global Health – Infection
We’re focusing on preventing and controlling resistant infections in highly impacted populations worldwide and driving progress in how innovations are developed, scaled and sustained.
Highlights from 2025 include:
• the launch of the third round of PACE – Pathways to Antimicrobial Clinical Efficacy, our partnership with Innovate UK and Medicines Discovery Catapult that is tackling antimicrobial resistance – to support projects that tackle the drug-resistant bacterial infections that pose the greatest threat to global health
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co-hosting the inaugural GAMRIC (Global Antimicrobial Resistance Innovators Conference) in London, bringing together more than 300 researchers, funders and innovators to discuss how we tackle the global crisis of antimicrobial resistance
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launching the D-SCAPE trial to test wearable devices that can spot early signs of severe dengue – common in many countries across the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands – to reduce reliance on invasive tests and improve care
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partnering with the Gates Foundation to fund projects that aim to reduce the cost of monoclonal antibodies, powerful drugs that currently cost around $50 to $100 per gram to produce. To be applicable in low-resource settings, manufacturing costs must drop below $10 per gram
• signing the agreement for the Fleming Initiative – of which we are a founding partner and will contribute £25 million alongside our expertise in early translational research – which unites partners around the world to address challenges of antimicrobial resistance
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Motor Neuron Disease (MND) and Rare Dementias
We’re supporting research into rare neurodegenerative diseases that have received limited attention.
Highlights from 2025 include:
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our inaugural Translational Science Summit on MND and Rare Dementias, bringing the community together to explore new approaches to therapeutic discovery, early diagnosis and digital solutions
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joining the Longitudinal Prize on ALS, a new global initiative using AI-based approaches to bring new drugs to people with MND
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supporting the validation of a finger prick-based test that could revolutionise the earlier detection of Alzheimer’s disease, through the BioHermes-002 clinical trial, in partnership with the Global Alzheimer’s Platform Foundation and the UK Dementia Research Institute (DRI) Biomarker Factory
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funding projects that could change the way people with MND and dementia are diagnosed, treated and supported, including through our MND Drug Repurposing Programme and our Primer Fund, and in partnership with UK DRI
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LifeArc Ventures
In addition to supporting research through our Translational Challenges, we invest broadly across therapeutics and biotech companies through our venture capital arm, LifeArc Ventures.
The goal is to support LifeArc’s long-term financial sustainability with the return of capital, while supporting the translation of scientific ideas into transformative treatments for patients.
LifeArc Ventures had its most active year to date in 2025, further growing and supporting its portfolio, which stood at 20 companies at year end.
We made first-time investments in 3 companies, all of which raised financings in 2025:
- $130 million Series B funding to support GlycoEra AG, based in Switzerland and US, to become a clinical-stage company and develop biologics that target multiple autoimmune conditions
We also participated in the financing rounds of 2 companies already in our portfolio:
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$72 million oversubscribed Series A funding to transform Maxion Therapeutics into a clinical-stage company and take its lead KnotBody[®] programme candidate, MAX001, to clinical proof-of-concept, unlocking new therapeutic possibilities for people with inflammatory diseases
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$26 million Series B funding for Affect Therapeutics, whose Affect platform helps people across more than 20 US states to address substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health challenges via a combination of behavioural therapy, biological monitoring and incentives, to expand its partnerships with health plans and employers
Several portfolio companies delivered substantial achievements, expanding IP, strengthening leadership, receiving clinical authorisations and forming strategic alliances. This includes:
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AviadoBio expanding its pipeline by acquiring rights to develop a novel gene therapy that aims to restore vision in people with retinal degeneration
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Ikarovec receiving positive FDA feedback on its development plan for IKAR-001, a first-in-class gene therapy for an irreversible form of macular degeneration called geographic atrophy, and presenting promising data on its therapeutic potential in geographic atrophy and wet age-related macular degeneration
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RQ Bio accelerating its flu programme, with a focus on long-acting antibodies for seasonal influenza A, building on its success in developing antiviral Kavigale for preventing Covid-19 in immunocompromised individuals
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€51 million Series B funding to support German biotech Exciva’s Phase 2 clinical trial of its lead candidate, Deraphan, which could provide a new therapy for agitation often experienced by people with Alzheimer's disease
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€23 million Series A funding for Tribune Therapeutics, a Swedish/Norwegian preclinical biopharmaceutical company, to develop a first-in-class treatment for people with the rare chronic lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and move it closer to clinical trials
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Our science capabilities: working with partners to give their research the best chance of reaching the clinic
Through our scientific platforms, our internal experts take a tailored approach to support our partners to advance their research and give high potential innovations the best chance of reaching the people who need them.
Across 2025, we continued to grow our clinical development and data science capabilities, including using data science across the pipeline, from the design of new molecules and analysis of complex datasets to the implementation of machine learning into clinical pathways. These areas will become increasingly important as we expand our clinical work to translate clinical research and data-driven insights into life changing outcomes for patients.
As our strategy evolves, a core part of our mission is to develop a pipeline of innovative preclinical projects with a clear line of sight to patient impact, working with partners who share our vision.
We expanded our scientific platforms and capabilities in recent years, building on our expertise in antibody humanization and small molecule drug development to include a cutting-edge antibody discovery platform, B-SMArT[TM] . This year, we signed our first antibody discovery programme agreement with the University of Bern, using B-SMArT[TM] to discover monoclonal human antibodies for dermatological conditions with serious unmet medical needs. This could be revolutionary for people affected by these conditions, which can be painful and incredibly distressing. We also entered a new 10year master services agreement with Cleveland Clinic to develop novel monoclonal antibody-based therapeutics for patients with unmet medical needs. The agreement builds on our successful partnership, having worked with Cleveland Clinic since 2019 on 4 humanization projects, with a fifth already underway.
Over the past year, we have:
- refocused our targeted protein degradation (TPD) capabilities on preclinical projects using TPD for specific childhood cancer targets, as informed by key opinion leaders and our insights and data science teams
• progressed the validation of a novel potential therapeutic target for MND with clear genetic linkage to the disease and a plausible therapeutic hypothesis, in collaboration with a King’s College London group
- developed a new project aiming to deliver monoclonal antibodies to treat high-priority resistant infections
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Plans for the future
Across 2026, we will build on the important foundations laid in recent years, growing our ambitions further with the announcement of our new strategy.
We will also build on our foundational investment in Our Future Health with the launch of our first health data strategy, a targeted vision to realise the potential of health data for people living with rare disease and drug-resistant infections.
Following a period of extensive recruitment, we are delighted to welcome new, permanent leaders to the LifeArc team, outlined in full on page 29. We’re grateful to the individuals who have led LifeArc through the change of recent years and welcome those who joined the executive management team over the past year to steer us into this new chapter.
The evolution of our strategic focus
One of LifeArc’s strengths is its agility in an ever-changing research landscape. For many years, we’ve adapted to meet the unmet needs of patients and our ecosystem, building a vast and varied skill set and helping to bring new advances through the early stages of the clinical pipeline.
Across 2026, we will continue to evolve our strategic focus so that faster patient impact is the main driver of all our activities. This new direction builds on our strengths in preclinical research and our role in supporting the wider ecosystem, while expanding further into funding and supporting clinical work, where discoveries can be translated more directly into solutions for people who urgently need them. Within these pillars – preclinical, clinical and ecosystem – much of our research will continue to be funnelled through our Translational Challenges, as outlined on page 6.
Staff relocation
Our new building at 105 Judd Street previously homed the Salvation Army and the Royal National Institute of the Blind and we’re excited to maintain its long history of charitable endeavour. The landlords and developers are refurbishing this heritage building in 2026, with the LifeArc fit out taking place in 2027. We expect to complete the move of our London- and Stevenage-based staff in early 2028. The new space will bring much of our multidisciplinary team together under one roof – including purpose-designed space for science, operations and partnerships – and strengthen our ability to collaborate across the ecosystem.
The coming year will also see our colleagues in Edinburgh relocating to new facilities. Edinburgh is a hub of translational activity that is well-connected across Scotland and northern England, where many of our partners are based. The move will enable our staff to better convene partners to deliver greater impact for patients.
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Financial sustainability
As a self-funded charity, our revenue generation is intimately linked to our ability to deliver patient impact. Our income derives from several sources, including royalties and revenue share from the projects we collaborate on, commercialisation of scientific platforms, our Ventures activities and returns from our investment portfolio. All income is reinvested into advancing our charitable goals, in a cycle that drives both financial sustainability and patient impact.
Our investment portfolio is a fundamental source of our income. We invest in a diverse portfolio to spread our risk across many asset classes. These include global equities, fixed income investments, private markets, infrastructure, real estate and hedge funds. Over the long term, we seek to outpace UK annual wage inflation by 3.5%, with the returns on our investment used to fund future translational activity. We also expect our LifeArc Ventures companies to provide us with financial returns, in addition to delivering positive impact for patients.
LifeArc’s financial income in any given year is not directly linked to that year’s expenditure. This is because our income primarily comes from royalties or revenue share on medical interventions we helped develop in the past or from long-term investments. As a result, we adopt a long-term approach to managing income, expenditure and reserves.
Our wider commitments to sustainability include conducting our business responsibly through appropriate environmental, social and corporate governance, internal control and risk management, developing and retaining our talent and building our reputation across the ecosystem.
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People report
At LifeArc, we’re dedicated to creating a diverse, flexible, equitable and happy work environment where everyone can thrive as their truest selves.
Central to our people strategy is continuing to listen to our people to understand their experiences and needs.
Across 2025, we listened more deeply to our people about what matters most to them through focus groups, regular surveys and the evolution of our cross-organisational Employee Voice group. In response, we’ve made a number of improvements to make LifeArc a place where everyone can thrive.
Engagement
Our latest engagement survey indicates that our passionate, talented people are united around a clear and compelling mission and that many colleagues feel supported by their managers.
We launched several initiatives this year to help colleagues continue to feel connected to our shared goals, including introducing new staff awards and recognition programmes to celebrate each other’s achievements. We also refreshed our wellbeing offering – which we know is deeply connected to engagement – with the launch of our newly enhanced mental, physical and financial wellbeing hubs.
Recent employee feedback suggests colleagues welcome these changes. Across 2026 and beyond, we will continue to build on this progress, so everyone feels informed about and connected to our shared goals. This includes fostering greater transparency within our leadership team and enhancing our communication around strategic direction and objectives.
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Our colleagues say:
82%
84% “I understand how my work
“I am proud contributes to
to work for patient impact”
LifeArc”
84%
“My manager
genuinely
cares about my
wellbeing”
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Culture
Equity, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) principles are fundamental to who we are as an organisation and to our ability to drive impact.
We are delighted that we now have 5 colleague support networks: Global Majority Voices (new for 2025), LGBTQ+, Menopause, Neurodiversity, and Parents and Carers. In partnership with the networks, we hosted a series of ED&I sessions, including celebrating heritage and awareness dates and providing training on unconscious bias. We will grow this further in 2026 with our new allyship programme.
Following a review to understand where our recruitment processes could be more inclusive, we are piloting a Guaranteed Interview Scheme for all applicants who identify as having a disability and meet the essential criteria within the job description. We also updated the wording on our job adverts to encourage more applicants from diverse backgrounds.
Wellbeing remains a top priority, and we enhanced our offering this year, including an overhaul of our online hub with easy access to resources. We made important changes to the way we talk about mental health, including supporting managers to have sensitive conversations, hosting awareness sessions and recruiting our first cohort of mental health champions.
We’re proud that these steps have contributed to our silver Talent Inclusion and Diversity Evaluation (TIDE) award, marking progress from our bronze status in 2024. Across 2026, we’ll continue to make LifeArc a place where every colleague feels valued, safe and respected.
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Performance and reward
As identified through our engagement survey, the opportunity to contribute to patient impact remains a major motivator for our colleagues. This year, we introduced more opportunities to reinforce this shared purpose, with new staff awards and a long-service recognition scheme. Our One LifeArc Day in September brought together all colleagues, creating a powerful moment of connection and a chance to take pride in our successes.
We are committed to improving our gender pay gap and, as LifeArc has grown significantly over recent years, we have seen a positive change in our gender balance across the organisation. We are proud to have achieved balance gender representation at our senior levels, having recruited 7 women into leadership roles across 2025, including interim roles.
We have more women than men in our early career roles, which influences our gender pay gap, but we anticipate a reduction in this gap over the coming year as we see the impact of more senior female appointments.
We are committed to supporting female colleagues at different life stages through the provision of services like maternity coaching to support reintegration and retention. In addition, we have introduced clinician-based support for women dealing with the impact of menopause, helping them to manage their symptoms and ultimately helping to maintain more women in the workplace.
While our activities are helping to close our gender pay gap, we recognise there is more to be done. You can read more about this in our gender pay gap report on our website.
Across 2026, we will begin to report on our ethnicity pay gap, which will be central to us identifying and addressing structural disparities and promoting an inclusive workplace.
Learning and career
We further developed our management development programme to become a flexible delivery platform designed to accommodate diverse learning styles, time constraints and life circumstances, with 27 new managers taking part. We also introduced a new senior leadership development programme.
We continued to run several initiatives to attract and support diverse early career science talent, which is essential to strengthening the wider ecosystem and securing the future of life sciences.
This includes receiving a record 800 applications for our industrial placement (IP) programme. By using the RARE Contextualised System, we were able to understand candidates’ achievements in context, enabling us to find the best hires from the widest talent pool. We look forward to welcoming our new cohort of 5 students in September 2026.
123 industrial placement students
83% of industrial placement students are still working in science roles
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More than 130 people have now taken part in our LifeArc Knowledge Transfer fellowships, which equip scientists with the highly demanded business and law skills that are essential to translational research. These alumni are now working across academia, industry, government, venture funding, and within LifeArc itself to ensure promising science reaches patients.
130+ fellows
trained to date through our 2 Knowledge Transfer fellowship programmes
Talent
This was our first full year with recruitment led by our new in-house team, which has been effective in helping to identify and recruit people who share our philosophy and values.
We were delighted to welcome 70 people to the organisation, across all departments and levels. In particular, we’ve recruited more people with clinical and strategic skills, mirroring the evolution of our strategic direction and marking a step forward in our commitment to deliver patient impact.
70 people
joined LifeArc in 2025
This programme exceeded my expectations and was pivotal to building the knowledge, network and confidence needed to secure my current position and develop my future career.”
LifeArc Knowledge Transfer Fellow 2025
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Strategic report
LifeArc is a charity registered in England and Wales. It is also registered in Scotland.
Our Board of Trustees are responsible for ensuring the charity complies with the law and our governing documents and that we achieve our purpose of bridging the gap between academic research and clinical development, to get new innovations to people with underserved conditions faster.
Charitable objectives
LifeArc’s Articles of Association set out our charitable objectives:
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to promote public benefit by improving human health and medical research, assisting the progress of scientific discoveries and new technologies into therapeutic treatments, drugs, diagnostics, other technologies or information resources
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to work with industry, charities, universities, the health service and other bodies, as well as conducting our own research and development, to accelerate the progress of discoveries and technologies so they:
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are capable of being made available to healthcare and the public for application for the improvement of health
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are transferred or licensed to a third party to progress development of discoveries towards such goals
Public benefit
The trustees have paid due regard to the public benefit guidance published by the Charity Commission and the Charity Commission’s general guidance when reviewing their aims and objectives and in planning future activities. In particular, the trustees have considered how planned activities will contribute to the organisation’s aims and objectives.
Promoting LifeArc’s success
In doing so they are required by section 172(1) of the Companies Act 2006 to take into account a number of factors. These include:
The likely consequences of any decision in the long term
The Board is responsible for setting and keeping under review LifeArc’s strategic direction. All major decisions likely to affect the long-term future of the organisation are discussed at board meetings or meetings of the relevant committee.
The interests of the company’s employees
The Board recognises that having a talented and diverse workforce, in whom we invest, is key to our ability to deliver on our strategic ambitions. Further details on what we are doing in this area can be found in the people report on page 13.
The need to foster the organisation’s business relationships with suppliers, customers and others
Our relationships with our suppliers and collaborators are critical to our success. Our business practices promote fairness, openness and integrity, and this is reflected in the way we do business with others. We work closely with our suppliers to ensure that we receive high standards of supplies and services. We work closely with a range of academic, charitable and commercial organisations, as well as patient groups, in pursuit of our strategic goals.
The impact of the company’s operations on the community and the environment
The carbon report on page 24 outlines LifeArc’s greenhouse gas emissions and activities designed to reduce our environmental impact.
The desirability of the company maintaining a reputation for high standards of business conduct
We are proud to maintain a high standard of business conduct and our trustees are alerted to any matters that might cause a reputational risk to the organisation. Upon accepting appointment, all trustees agree to our Code of Conduct for Trustees.
The need to act fairly between members of the company
As a company limited by guarantee, LifeArc does not have any shareholders. Serving trustees are LifeArc’s only members.
The trustees have a duty to promote LifeArc’s success by advancing its charitable objectives to promote medical research for the benefit of the public.
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Risk report
The Board sets LifeArc’s strategic objectives, annually reviews risk appetite and sets the risk management policy. Throughout 2025, the Board has considered risk in terms of the wider landscape in which we operate, ensuring significant risks and threats are identified and monitored and are considered in the delivery of our mission and vision.
LifeArc’s approach to risk management continues to mature with changes in 2025 to appoint Grant Thorton to the role of Head of Internal Audit to enhance independence previously having an in-house role.
Oversight of the organisation’s risk arrangements remains delegated by the Board of Trustees to the Audit & Risk Management Committee (ARMC), with day-to-day accountability resting with the Chief Executive Officer and the executive leadership team.
In 2025, LifeArc has continued to embed and refine its enterprise-wide risk management framework, including clearer ownership, stronger data governance, and more proactive identification of emerging risks. The following table summarises the principal risks being proactively managed and mitigated across LifeArc.
| Risk explanation | Management and mitigation of risk |
|---|---|
| Long-term financial sustainability and liquidity If we fail to generate sufficient long-term income or react appropriately to changes in our income and expenditure profile, this may result in insufficient liquidity to meet cash flow requirements. |
• Annual budgeting and long-term planning cycle • Long-term financial sustainability strategy agreed with Board, including liquidity guardrails • Professional investment and Ventures teams and advisors with set strategies, expected returns and robust governance structures in place to take timely action • Hedging strategies for foreign currency risks • Monthly tracking of financial performance, commitments and reserves by the Finance Committee |
| IT, cyber security and resilience The continually evolving IT and cyber security landscape exposes us to the risk of information / data security breach or information / data loss. |
• Robust data recovery systems are in place and reviewed for resilience, alongside periodically reviewed business continuity plans and independent penetration testing • IT system users undertake mandatory cyber security awareness training • Regular security testing including crisis simulation exercises • ISO:27001 and cyber essentials plus accreditation |
| Data governance Greater use of data and data science including AI may result in failure to maintain data privacy or prevent data leakage / misuse. |
• Data strategy and data governance strategies in place • Dedicated internal data protection officer and data governance lead appointed in Jan 2026 • Implementation of a data council to steward LifeArc's work on data issues • Data Management Plan for all new projects and initiatives |
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Risk explanation Management and mitigation of risk
• A range of external specialist commercial teams have been
deployed to help with building selection, design, fit-out
Judd Street and negotiations to achieve best value and support
long-term success
The significant project of selecting and moving to a new
building risks time and budget overrun and may disrupt • Early engagement, communication and socialisation of the
mission delivery and strategic objectives. move among employees and managers
• Robust project governance and management controls
applied including board sub-committee
• Clear communication of LifeArc's revised focus
• Engagement with colleagues to support them with clear
messaging and materials to communicate our strategic
Reputation and brand shift
If communications are not effectively monitored and • Stakeholder engagement plan in place for relevant
controlled to have the desired impact, it could lead to stakeholders
reputation damage and loss of influence. • Crisis communications plan that enables rapid and
effective response to reputational crisis
• Clear approval process including executive level approval
for high profile communications
• Appetite for legal and regulatory risk is reviewed and set by
the Board on an annual basis
Compliance • Policy management tool forces document review as per
agreed schedule and requires policy lead and owner
As the organisation continues to grow and transform at
sign-off
pace, there is a need to ensure compliance with
regulations and legislation. • Use of internal audit to validate compliance
• Culture is monitored via engagement surveys
• Introduction of KPI monitoring from 2026
• Funding Framework that formalises our approach to
providing funding to external organisations including a
Funding core set of terms and conditions
• Active tracking and engagement with our partners
Providing funding, including expanding our areas of focus
and recipients
to include clinical, exposes LifeArc to the risk of ineffective
use of funds, a failure to create impact, fraud or error if not • In many cases external expert panels provide input to
governed effectively. funding decisions to ensure appropriate governance
• Development of a clinical trial framework to strengthen
oversight for clinical trial funding
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Other risks identified and considered by the ARMC and Board included: health and safety, intellectual property, impact reporting, change and transformation, alignment of our scientific platform capabilities, people, skills and expertise and impacts of geopolitical changes. We integrate risk management with our approach to LifeArc’s insurance strategy, seeking to transfer risk where appropriate. Additionally, we integrate the work and operation of the internal audit function in providing assurance and actions in response to identified risk. The trustees have considered the major risks to which the organisation is exposed and satisfied themselves that they are appropriately managed.
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Financial review
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2025 2024
£000s £000s
Total income 86.7 205.0
Total expenditure (108.6) (95.9)
Net gains on investments and FX hedges 114.7 112.4
Net movement in funds 92.9 221.5
Funds balance carried forward 1,699.9 1,607.0
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Income
Total incoming resources of £86.7 million (2024: £205.0 million) were made up of £75.2 million (2024: £184.3 million) income from charitable activities and £11.4 million (2024: £20.5 million) investment income. Income from charitable activities includes £74.6 million (2024: £182.6 million) of contract and royalty income, and £300,000 (2024: £1.2 million) received for intellectual property management and technology transfer services. LifeArc’s most significant charitable income came from pharmaceutical product royalties. This income is not connected to the current year’s expenditure and will fluctuate significantly from year to year.
Expenditure
Total resources expended during the year was £108.6 million, an increase of £12.7 million (13.2%) on 2024’s £95.9 million. Resources expended includes the cost of generating funds, corporate and governance costs and general support costs.
LifeArc Ventures investments during 2025
In addition to expenditure, LifeArc made investments into early-stage life science companies totalling £31.8 million (2024: £32.8 million). This includes both direct investments into private companies and indirect fund investments.
Grants and funding
LifeArc provides funding through grants and other funding arrangements to partner organisations to further our charitable objectives to support translational research in our focus areas and beyond. Approval for funding calls follows our scheme of delegation and the award of individual projects is typically vetted by an expert panel with input from our internal opportunity assessment group. We oversee the award process and the monitoring of projects through our partnerships team with support from our project management office. Grants awarded in the period are detailed on page 50.
Net gains on investment and FX hedges
Net gains for the year of £114.7 million was made up of net gains from the Investment portfolio of £109.3 million, and net gains on FX hedges £16.5 million, offset by a net reduction of £11.0 million losses from LifeArc Ventures direct and indirect investments as a limited partner. This is made up of net losses from the revaluation of multiple investments.
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Investment portfolio review
LifeArc manages its investment portfolio in line with its established investment and environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies, which set the parameters for asset allocation and underpin the long-term return objective of 3.5% plus UK average wage inflation. Oversight is provided by the Investment Committee, with any strategic adjustments subject to Board approval.
Across 2025, LifeArc’s long-term investment portfolio rose £117 million to end the year at a value of £1.372 billion, an increase of 9%. In relative terms, the portfolio performed moderately well. This is partly due to having most of the portfolio invested in public market equities, which was the leading main asset class.
It was yet another challenging year for active public equity funds managers who, in the main, struggled to keep up with passive index funds. The allocation to passive equities versus active public equities in the portfolio was 33%/67%, which compares to 46%/54% for the year ending 2024. We have purposely decreased our exposure to passive funds in favour of active managers. This approach has been about constructing a balanced portfolio, rather than simply favouring active management over passive investing.
We have introduced a dedicated mid and small cap Japanese equity fund and an emerging market equity fund to the portfolio. We also invested in a value-orientated global equity fund which has a relatively low exposure to the US equity market and high exposure to UK equities. All 3 investments were funded by partially redeeming our passive global equity exposure. These changes improve the diversification of the geographical and investment style orientation of the portfolio.
In the hedge fund sector of the portfolio, we increased our allocation from 6% to 8%. This sector consists of 14 funds, up from 10 funds the year before. These new investments were funded from selling down our holdings in passive global equities. The hedge fund section of the portfolio continues to generate attractive risk adjusted returns. Following on from a busy 2024 for commitment of capital in the private markets arena, we allocated to 11 funds, bringing a total of 44 to date. At the end of the year, we had 4.7% (previously 3.3%) of the overall portfolio deployed by our funds across private equity, venture capital, infrastructure, private credit and real estate.
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Reserves policy
All of LifeArc’s reserves are held in pursuance of our charitable objectives.
Our policy, reviewed by the trustees annually, is to hold reserves which, along with anticipated future income, will enable the organisation to fund our operations and be sustainable in the long term to drive patient impact. The timescales associated with the translation of medical research are long-term with the development of interventions such as therapeutics often taking more than 10 years, so it is critical that we are able to sustain ourselves in the long term to support projects to completion with our partners. Reserves are not restricted, are expendable and will be spent in the future in pursuit of our charitable objectives. LifeArc will not make commitments in excess of our liquid reserves, and we are compliant with that position on 31 December 2025.
As well as the total balance sheet value of £1,699.9 million (2024: £1,607.0 million), the Board considers 2 definitions when measuring reserves:
- total cash and invested reserves, which was £1,668.2 million as of 31 December 2025 (2024: £1,542.3 million)
Financial sustainability
LifeArc considers impact and financial sustainability to be compatible and critically co-dependent elements of our strategy.
Our long-term financial plan is evaluated at least once a year by the Board and has 4 key elements: income generated through invested reserves managed by our investment office, returns from venture investments through our ventures team, revenue from operations (for example, royalties and milestones) and expenditure. The Board ensures that, given current reserves and certain assumptions about future investment returns and income, the organisation’s long-term plan is robust and positions LifeArc to maximise impact while maintaining financial sustainability.
A goal of the trustees’ financial planning is that we will have sufficient flexibility such that in periods of high financial stress we will avoid crystallising losses through the forced sale of assets by aiming for 50% of our investments across the balance sheet to remain in liquid assets. This is to ensure we are positioned to fulfil our commitments and obligations.
- liquid and readily available cash and investments excluding any planned allocation to illiquid private investments, which was £1,154.7 million as of 31 December 2025 (2024: £1,077.6 million)
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Carbon report
We are committed to reducing our energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Here, we summarise LifeArc’s consumption and emissions for 2025, and how we are approaching our responsibility to reduce our environmental impact.
Reporting period
We are reporting on energy usage and emissions from 1 January to 31 December 2025.
Methodology
We have followed the GHG Reporting Protocol – Corporate Standard for company reporting to identify and report relevant energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over which we have operational control. This includes owned assets where LifeArc is directly responsible for electricity and/or gas supplies across its 3 sites (Stevenage, London and Edinburgh). We have also considered the 7 main GHGs covered by the Kyoto protocol, converting to tonnes of CO2 equivalents (CO2e).
Business travel in employee-owned vehicles relates to mileage expense claims from LifeArc staff during 2025.
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2024 2025 Vs (%)
Energy consumption used to calculate emissions (kWh) 1,861,609 1,942,172 4%
Energy consumption breakdown (kWh):
Gas (Scope 1) 0 0
Electricity (Scope 2) 1,835,136 1,918,024 5%
Transport fuel (Scope 3) 26,473 24,148 -9%
Scope 1: Direct emissions from owned or controlled sources (such as fuel combustion or company
vehicles) in metric tonnes CO2e
Total 0 0
Scope 2: Indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, in metric tonnes CO2e
(Location based)
Total 376 335 -11%
Scope 3: Business travel in employee-owned vehicles, in metric tonnes CO2e
Total 7 7 0%
Total gross emissions in metric tonnes CO2e 383 342 -11%
Intensity ratio: Tonnes CO2e per FTE 1.1 0.9 -18%
Intensity ratio: Purchased electricity tonnes CO2e per 1000 sq m 0.1 0.1 0%
floor area
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*Relates to LifeArc employee mileage claims for personal vehicle travel.
**Using HMRC UK Government GHG Conversion factors for company reporting
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Increasing our energy efficiency
In 2025, heating and cooling of our offices and laboratories continued to be the largest source of carbon emissions for our on-site activities. We have continued to work with our building managers to further understand our electricity consumption in more detail and have continued to explore further efficiency gains concerning heating and cooling systems.
In our laboratories, teams have taken steps to enhance energy efficiency through better management of cold storage and temperature control systems. Regular clean outs of refrigerators prevent overloading, while ultra-low temperature freezers, previously kept at -80°C, are now kept at -70°C, reducing energy consumption without compromising sample integrity and helping to extend equipment lifespan.
In March 2025, we took on an additional floor in our London office, which resulted in increased electricity usage. This, coupled with 2025 experiencing more extreme and more variable temperatures than 2024, has led to higher electricity usage within our labs and offices while managing comfortable working conditions for staff.
Our electricity consumption in 2025 has increased by 5% as a result of increased floor space, increased staff numbers and more extreme outdoor temperatures. However, our intensity ratio tonnes CO2e per FTE has decreased from 1.1 to 0.9 (18%) highlighting our increased efficiencies in electricity usage.
Future priorities for sustainability
Looking ahead, we remain committed to expanding these initiatives, empowering colleagues and strengthening our sustainability framework to ensure a positive and lasting impact on both people and the planet. We are also committed to embedding sustainability into our operations at our new Judd Street location.
We continue to develop our environmental, social and governance (ESG) roadmap, outlining our plans for measurable improvement and progress towards our ESG aspirations.
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Structure, governance and management
LifeArc is a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity, established in 2000.
The organisation’s governing document is its Articles of Association which sets out its charitable objectives (see page 18).
Summary of governance structure
The Board is responsible for setting strategy and ensuring that the necessary financial, human and physical assets to meet the organisation’s strategic aims are in place. The Board monitors organisational performance and oversees risk management, as well as planning for board and executive management succession, overseeing any changes to the articles of association and upholding our culture and values.
The Board delegates oversight and assurance for key business functions to 6 Board Committees: the Audit and Risk Management Committee, Investment Committee, Nominations Committee, Remuneration Committee, the Board Financial Approvals Committee and the Construction Oversight Committee.
The Construction Oversight Committee was established this year to provide oversight and governance of the construction project at 105 Judd Street and, following Board approval, met for the first time in September.
Responsibility for the day-to-day running of LifeArc is delegated by the Board to the executive management team. The team, under the leadership of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), proposes to the Board where the organisation should invest its time, money and expertise. The executive management team also prepares recommendations for any strategic changes to the organisation’s activities prior to submission to the Board or committees of the Board. The team is also responsible for developing the financial and operational plans for board approval, and for monitoring financial performance.
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Structure of LifeArc’s Board of Trustees and Board Committees
Executive committees (with a focus on science, finance, health and safety and early ventures) are not included in this report.
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Reserved
Board of trustees (directors)
matters for
(Meets quarterly)
the Board
Construction
Audit and Risk Board Financial
Investment Management Approvals Nominations Remuneration Oversight
Committee Committee Committee Committee Committee Committee
(Meets quarterly) (Meets minimum (Meets as required) (Meets 2x yearly) (Meets minimum (Meets minimum
decisions on the Updates and investment portfolio Financial reporting risk and internal 3x yearly) investments outside Allows decisions to be taken on Appointments of senior execsNEDs and Pay and performance for senior execs3x yearly) construction project 1x monthly)Oversight of at 105 Judd
control assurance Board meetings Street
Delegates
day-to-day
decision
making to
execs
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Summary of governance structure
Clear organisational and control structure and scheme of delegation set out those matters which are reserved for the Board, and those which are delegated to committees of the Board, or to the CEO or other executive(s). Matters reserved for the Board include changes to the strategy or budget, approval of significant projects and policies, decisions about property, and the organisation’s risk appetite. The Board approves the annual budget and strategic goals and monitors financial performance and progress towards the strategic goals at each Board meeting.
Charity Governance Code
Throughout 2025, LifeArc was guided by the Charity Governance Code for Larger Charities (‘the Code’), which sets out the principles of good governance practice for charities in England and Wales, and the Charity Commission’s guidance. The new Charity Governance Code of 2025 was recently introduced and will guide LifeArc activities going forward. The General Counsel and Company Secretary monitors compliance with the Code and advises the Board on any action required.
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LifeArc executive management team
The executive management team is responsible for the day-to-day running of the charity under the authority of the Board.
Over the past 12 months, the team’s skills have been honed with the recruitment of new leaders who have the skills and experience needed to deliver LifeArc’s ambitions. Last year’s report outlined how Jonathan Morgan and Fiona Roberts joined the team as Chief Medical Officer and Chief People Officer, respectively. Adrien Lemoine joined as Chief Business Officer in May 2025, following Dr Jason Slingsby stepping down in April, while Claire Pimm joined as Chief Communications Officer in June. George Orphanides joined as Chief Scientific Officer in July, following Dr Dave Powell’s departure. Matthew Owens joined as General Counsel and Company Secretary in early 2026, following Rachael Davidson’s departure, with Mark Chambers and Ned Fenston taking on the interim roles of Corporate Secretary and General Counsel, respectively, in the intervening period.
Dr Sam Barrell, CBE Chief Executive Officer
Stéphane Maikovsky Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer
Ned Fenston Interim General Counsel (from September 2025)
Adrien Lemoine Chief Business Officer (from May 2025)
Dr Jonathan Morgan Chief Medical Officer (from January 2025)
George Orphanides Chief Scientific Officer (from July 2025)
Claire Pimm Chief Communications Officer (from June 2025)
Fiona Roberts Chief People Officer
Dr Karen Skinner
Chief Project and Portfolio Officer (until July 2025) Chief Operating Officer (from August 2025)
Clare Terlouw Head of LifeArc Ventures
The Board is delighted to welcome the new leaders to the team, all of whom bring a wealth of experience to drive LifeArc forward, to meet its ambitious objectives and bring real impact to the people who need it most. The Board is also grateful to those who led LifeArc through a period of significant growth and achievement, either in interim positions or choosing to step down from their respective roles this year.
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LifeArc Board of Trustees
Dr Ian Gilham
Chair of the Board
Chair of the Nominations and Board Financial Approval Committees
Lynne Robb
The Board is composed of 12 trustees, including the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and the Deputy Chief Executive Officer (DCEO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO), who are paid employees of LifeArc.
The trustees fulfil the legally defined roles of members and directors of the charitable company. They have broad and varied backgrounds, bringing not only the requisite governance experience, but also the diverse range of skills which the organisation requires, including biomedical science, investment fund management, finance, risk management and law. Within the Board, 45% of trustees are women and 18% are from a minority ethnic background. We are committed to improving this further in the coming years.
The independent trustees are not remunerated for their role at LifeArc. Trustees and members of the leadership team benefit from indemnity insurance as allowed by section 234 of the Companies Act 2006. Trustees are reimbursed for any direct expenses they incur in carrying out their duties.
Vice Chair of the Board Chair of the Audit and Risk Management Committee
Dr Sam Barrell, CBE
Chief Executive Officer
Stéphane Maikovsky
Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer
Dr Terri Cooper
Chair of the Construction Oversight Committee Member of the Investment Committee and the Nominations Committee
Dr Rima Makarem
Member of the Audit and Risk Management Committee (until February 2025)
Dr Sameer Mistry
Member of the Nominations Committee and the Remuneration Committee
Daniel Morgan
Member of the Audit and Risk Management Committee, the Board Financial Approvals Committee and the Construction Oversight Committee
Ian Nicholson
Chair of the Remuneration Committee Member of the Investment Committee and the Board Financial Approvals Committee
Jo Pisani
The Board typically meets each year for 4 formal board meetings and one strategy day. Additionally, the Board meets as needed for shorter topic-specific meetings. During 2025, the Board met an additional 2 times as a full Board and once as non-executive trustees only, to discuss and approve a proposed lease agreement for the premises at 105 Judd Street.
Member of the Remuneration Committee and the Construction Oversight Committee (from November 2025)
Susan Wallcraft
Member of the Audit and Risk Management Committee and Remuneration Committee
David Zahn
Chair of the Investment Committee
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Recruitment and election of LifeArc trustees
Non-executive trustees are recommended by the Nominations Committee and appointed by the Board through an open recruitment process. As recommended under the Charity Governance Code, trustees are appointed for a renewable term of 3 years and are eligible to stand for re-election for a maximum of 3 consecutive terms. Dr Rima Makarem resigned from the Board in February 2025, and we thank her for her service.
Induction and training of LifeArc trustees
Trustees meet regularly with members of the executive management team to discuss all areas of the business. New trustees receive a tailored induction to ensure that they understand our objectives and operations as well as their duties and statutory obligations. Trustees are given relevant Charity Commission guidance, and further training and development opportunities for the Board as a whole, or for individual trustees, are delivered as needed.
Board effectiveness
The Board took part in a training programme throughout the year to ensure their skill set and knowledge remain up to date.
In November 2025, the trustees completed a board effectiveness review using a structured survey process. The review considered the effectiveness of the Board and its committees across a range of areas, including strategy, governance, culture, stakeholder engagement and risk oversight. The outcome of the review was positive, demonstrating continued improvement in overall effectiveness and recognising the strength of board discussion, constructive challenge and committee oversight. The review also identified areas for further focus, including succession planning and talent development, stakeholder engagement, organisational culture and the continued refinement of board papers. The findings were considered by the Board and will continue to inform governance and board effectiveness priorities in 2026.
Trustees as members
As a company limited by guarantee, LifeArc is required by law to have members who act as nominal guarantors should the company ever be wound up. LifeArc has adopted the foundation model of governance which restricts membership to serving trustees only.
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Committees of the Board
A summary of the responsibilities of each committee can be found below.
Membership of the committees as of December 2025 is shown on page 30. All trustees serve on one or more committees. Membership of each committee and its terms of reference are approved by the Board. Committees can co-opt external individuals to provide additional expertise. The committee Chair provides an update of the committee’s activities at the following board meeting, and all committee meeting agendas, papers and minutes are shared with the Board.
Audit and Risk Management Committee
The Audit and Risk Management Committee advises the Board on the adequacy and effectiveness of LifeArc’s arrangements for the financial reporting process, the integrity of LifeArc’s financial statements, the external and internal audit process, the system of internal controls and the identification and management of risks and the risk management framework, and the organisation’s processes for monitoring compliance with legislative and regulatory requirements. It oversees the selection and appointment of both the external and internal auditor, setting their remuneration and maintaining oversight of their work.
Investment Committee
The Investment Committee provides appropriate and effective oversight of LifeArc’s investment portfolio. Working within the Investment Policy, which is approved by the Board, the committee is responsible for determining asset allocation, approval of fund managers, hedging arrangements, appointment of investment consultants, custodian and other consultants and their terms of engagement and overseeing the application of the Environmental, Social and Governance Policy.
The Investment Policy Statement outlines LifeArc’s investment policy and strategy, emphasising a diversified portfolio across a multitude of asset classes.
The Investment Policy Statement’s key objectives are to:
-
provide a decision-making framework for managing LifeArc’s investment portfolio
-
fund LifeArc’s spending budget as determined by the Board (the primary investment objective)
-
maintain the real (inflation-adjusted) value of the portfolio over the long term (15+ years), as far as possible (the secondary objective)
-
set portfolio-level targets and constraints that support those objectives
Nominations Committee
The Nominations Committee reviews the structure, size and composition of the Board and recommends any changes to the membership of the Board and its committees. It is responsible for succession planning for trustees and the executive team, identifying and nominating new trustees to fill vacancies and making recommendations to the Board on the re-appointment of non-executive trustees. It reviews the membership of the Board committees and oversees LifeArc’s equity, diversity and inclusion approach.
Remuneration Committee
The Remuneration Committee determines and agrees LifeArc’s reward philosophy and associated strategy, and on an annual basis approves the budget and approach for reward in respect of pay awards and performancerelated bonus awards. The committee uses benchmark data and sets remuneration levels for members of the executive management team with the aim of attracting, retaining and motivating senior leaders who can help deliver the organisation’s ambitious strategy and goals. Bonus payments are linked to performance as assessed by the CEO for the executive team and the chair in the case of the CEO. All bonus payments for the executive team are approved by the committee, as well as reviewing the organisation’s overall recommendations for the general employee pool.
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Board Financial Approvals Committee
The Board Financial Approvals Committee supports effective governance of investment decisions which are outside of the remit of the LifeArc Ventures Investments Committee and the Investment Committee, to ensure that life sciences investments further LifeArc’s strategy, and social investments meet LifeArc’s stated charitable purpose. It provides access to the Board to facilitate swift decision-making outside of the programme of scheduled meetings and without the need to call a board meeting at short notice.
Construction Oversight Committee
The Construction Oversight Committee was established in 2025 to provide oversight and governance of the construction project at 105 Judd Street. Members will be kept up to date with all elements of the overall Judd Street project, but responsibilities exclude non-construction elements, such as the relocation of staff from Stevenage.
Composition of the Board and committees, as of 31 December 2025
Below shows the composition of the Board, their membership to each board committee, and the number of meetings they attended in 2025.
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Trustee Date of End Committees
Role appoin- date Number of times meeting in 2025
tment
Board Audit Investment Nominations Remuneration Board Construction
and risk financial oversight
management approvals
6 5 4 1 5 0 3
Dr Ian Gilham Oct
XXXXXX X -
Chair 2021
Lynne Robb Jun
XOXOXX XXXXX
Vice Chair 2020
Dr Sam Barrell
Oct
CBE XXXXXX XXX
2024
CEO of LifeArc
Stéphane
Maikovsky Jun
XXXXXX - XXX
DCEO and CFO 2022
of LifeArc
Dr Terri Jun
XXXXXX XXXX X XXX
Cooper 2023
Dr Rima Jun Feb
Makarem 2023 2025
Dr Sameer June
XOXXXX X XXXX-
Mistry 2023
Daniel Nov
XXOXXX XXXXX - XXX
Morgan 2017
Ian Oct
XOXXXX XOOO XXXXX -
Nicholson 2021
Jo Dec
XXXXXX XXXXX -XX
Pisani 2020
Susan Oct
XXOXXX XXXXXX XXXXX
Wallcraft 2021
David Aug
XXOXXX XXXX
Zahn 2019
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Key: X attended I O not attended I - not applicable
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Conflicts of interest
LifeArc’s policy on conflicts of interest applies to the Board and employees alike. A register of trustees’ interests is reviewed at each board meeting, and all employees complete a conflicts disclosure form annually. Randomised checks are conducted to support our compliance processes. Completed forms are reviewed by the Company Secretary to identify and manage any actual or potential conflict.
The Audit & Risk Management Committee reviews the Policy related to gifts, hospitality and interests and the registers are available as required to meet any regulatory review.
Statement of board responsibilities
The Board of Trustees are responsible for preparing the trustees’ report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom accounting standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Practice). Company law requires the Board to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of LifeArc at the balance sheet date and of its incoming resources and application of those resources, including its income and expenditure for the financial year.
In preparing these financial statements, the Board is required to:
The Board is responsible for maintaining proper accounting records that are sufficient to show and to explain LifeArc’s transactions and to disclose, with reasonable accuracy, at any time, the financial position of LifeArc and to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006, the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended).
The Board is also responsible for safeguarding the assets of LifeArc and for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud or other irregularities.
LifeArc’s financial statements are published on its website in accordance with legislation in the United Kingdom, governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements. The maintenance and integrity of LifeArc’s website is the responsibility of the Board and this responsibility extends to the ongoing integrity of the financial statements published on the website.
Preparation of financial statements
The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the accounting policies set out in the notes to the financial statements, and comply with LifeArc’s Articles of Association, applicable law, the Statement of Recommended Practice ‘Accounting and Reporting by Charities’ and Financial Reporting Standard FRS 102.
-
select suitable accounting policies and apply them consistently
-
observe the methods and principles in the Charities’ Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP)
-
make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent
-
state whether applicable UK Accounting Standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements
-
prepare the financial statements on a going concern basis, unless it is inappropriate to presume that LifeArc will continue to be in operation for the foreseeable future.
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Disclosure of information to auditors
The trustees who held office at the date of approval of this trustees’ report confirm that, so far as each of them is aware:
-
there is no relevant audit information of which LifeArc’s auditor is unaware
-
each trustee has taken all of the steps that they ought to have taken as a trustee to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information, and to establish that LifeArc’s auditor is aware of that information
Approval
The trustees’ report incorporating the strategic report was approved by the Board of Trustees of LifeArc on:
Date: 2 3 0 6 2 6
Signature:
Signed on its behalf by: Dr Ian Gilham, Chair of the LifeArc Board of Trustees
Auditor Moore Kingston Smith LLP was appointed as an independent external auditor in September 2024. The Audit Risk and Management Committee reviewed the proposed delivery of the audit and noted that the auditors meet the requirements to exercise suitable objectivity in relation to the carrying out the audit.
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Docu51gn Envelope ID J5J66EEO-CDCO-8323-80DO-B76JE07JA2E8 2025 accounts
Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
Independent auditor’s report
Opinion
We have audited the financial statements of Lifearc (the ‘charitable company’) for the year ended 31 December 2025, which comprise the statement of financial activities, the balance sheet, the statement of cash flows and notes to the financial statements, including significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including FRS 102 ‘The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland’ (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).
In our opinion the financial statements:
-
give a true and fair view of the state of the charitable company’s affairs as at 31 December 2025 and of its incoming resources and application of resources, including its income and expenditure, for the year then ended
-
have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice
-
have been prepared in accordance with the Companies Act 2006, the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 (as amended) and regulation 8 of the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended)
Basis for opinion
We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor’s Responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the charitable company in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.
Conclusions relating to going concern
In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustees’ use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.
Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the charitable company's ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.
Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.
Other information
The other information comprises the information included in the annual report, other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. The trustees are responsible for the other information contained in the annual report. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon.
Our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the course of the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether there is a material misstatement in the financial statements themselves. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.
We have nothing to report in this regard.
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006
In our opinion, based on the work undertaken in the course of the audit:
-
the information given in the strategic report and the trustees’ annual report for the financial year for which the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements
-
the strategic report and the trustees’ annual report have been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements
Matters on which we are required to report by exception
In the light of the knowledge and understanding of the charitable company and its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatements in the strategic report or the trustees’ annual report.
We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters where the Companies Act 2006 or the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended) require us to report to you if, in our opinion:
-
the charitable company has not kept adequate and sufficient accounting records, or returns adequate for our audit have not been received from branches not visited by us
-
the charitable company’s financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records and returns
-
certain disclosures of trustees’ remuneration specified by law are not made
-
we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit
Responsibilities of trustees
As explained more fully in the Statement of board responsibilities, the trustees (who are also the directors of the charitable company for the purposes of company law) are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true
and fair view, and for such internal control as the trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.
In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the charitable company’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the charitable company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.
Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements
We have been appointed as auditor under Section 44(1)(c) of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and under the Companies Act 2006 and report to you in accordance with regulations made under those Acts.
Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.
As part of an audit in accordance with ISAs (UK) we exercise professional judgement and maintain professional scepticism throughout the audit. We also:
• Identify and assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to fraud or error, design and perform audit procedures responsive to those risks, and obtain audit evidence that is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion. The risk of not detecting a material misstatement resulting from fraud is higher than for one resulting from error, as fraud may involve collusion, forgery, intentional omissions, misrepresentations, or the override of internal control
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
-
Obtain an understanding of internal control relevant to the audit in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the purposes of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the charitable company’s internal control.
-
Evaluate the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of accounting estimates and related disclosures made by the trustees.
-
Conclude on the appropriateness of the trustees’ use of the going concern basis of accounting and, based on the audit evidence obtained, whether a material uncertainty exists related to events or conditions that may cast significant doubt on the charitable company’s ability to continue as a going concern. If we conclude that a material uncertainty exists, we are required to draw attention in our auditor’s report to the related disclosures in the financial statements or, if such disclosures are inadequate, to modify our opinion. Our conclusions are based on the audit evidence obtained up to the date of our auditor’s report. However, future events or conditions may cause the charitable company to cease to continue as a going concern.
-
Evaluate the overall presentation, structure and content of the financial statements, including the disclosures, and whether the financial statements represent the underlying transactions and events in a manner that achieves fair presentation.
-
Obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence regarding the financial information of the entities or business activities within the charitably company to express an opinion on the consolidated financial statements. We are responsible for the direction, supervision and performance of the audit. We remain solely responsible for our audit report.
We communicate with those charged with governance regarding, among other matters, the planned scope and timing of the audit and significant audit findings, including any significant deficiencies in internal control that we identify during our audit.
Explanation as to what extent the audit was considered capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud
Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. We design procedures in line with our responsibilities, outlined above, to detect material misstatements in respect of irregularities, including fraud. The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud is detailed below.
The objectives of our audit in respect of fraud, are; to identify and assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements due to fraud; to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence regarding the assessed risks of material misstatement due to fraud, through designing and implementing appropriate responses to those assessed risks; and to respond appropriately to instances of fraud or suspected fraud identified during the audit. However, the primary responsibility for the prevention and detection of fraud rests with both management and those charged with governance of the charitable company.
Our approach was as follows:
• We obtained an understanding of the legal and regulatory requirements applicable to the charitable company and considered that the most significant are the Companies Act 2006, the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 (as amended), regulation 8 of the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended), the Charity SORP, and UK financial reporting standards as issued by the Financial Reporting Council
-
We obtained an understanding of how the charitable company complies with these requirements by discussions with management and those charged with governance
-
We assessed the risk of material misstatement of the financial statements, including the risk of material misstatement due to fraud and how it might occur, by holding discussions with management and those charged with governance
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
-
We inquired of management and those charged with governance as to any known instances of non-compliance or suspected non-compliance with laws and regulations
-
Based on this understanding, we designed specific appropriate audit procedures to identify instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. This included making enquiries of management and those charged with governance and obtaining additional corroborative evidence as required
There are inherent limitations in the audit procedures described above. We are less likely to become aware of instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations that are not closely related to events and transactions reflected in the financial statements. Also, the risk of not detecting a material misstatement due to fraud is higher than the risk of not detecting one resulting from error, as fraud may involve deliberate concealment by, for example, forgery or intentional misrepresentations, or through collusion.
Use of our report
This report is made solely to the charitable company's members, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006 and to the charitable company’s trustees, as a body, in accordance with Section 44(1)(c) of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charitable company's members and trustees those matters which we are required to state to them in an auditor's report addressed to them and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to any party other than the charitable company and charitable company's members as a body, and the charity’s trustees, as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.
Luke Holt (Senior Statutory Auditor)
Date: 30-Jun-2026
For and on behalf of:
Moore Kingston Smith LLP Statutory Auditor, 9 Appold Street, London, EC2A 2AP
Moore Kingston Smith LLP is eligible to act as auditor in terms of Section 1212 of the Companies Act 2006.
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
Financial statements
Statement of financial activities (incorporating an income and expenditure account). For the year ended 31 December 2025
----- Start of picture text -----
Notes Unrestricted Restricted Total funds Total funds
fund funds 2025 2024
£000s £000s £000s £000s
Income and endowments from:
Charitable activities 1 74,878 360 75,238 184,264
Investments 2 11,416 – 11,416 20,479
Other income 3 84 – 84 300
Total income and
86,378 360 86,738 205,043
endowments
Expenditure on:
Raising funds 4 2,959 – 2,959 2,210
Charitable activities 5 105,257 360 105,617 93,645
Provisions 19 - – – 79
Total expenditure 108,216 360 108,576 95,934
Net gains /(losses) on 14/15 98,286 – 98,286 115,560
investments
Net (losses) / gains on – –
16,451 16,451 (3,187)
FX hedges
Net income – 92,899 – 92,899 221,482
Net movement in funds 21 92,899 – 92,899 221,482
Reconciliation of funds:
Total funds brought 21 1,606,960 – 1,606,960 1,385,478
forward
Total funds carried
21 1,699,859 – 1,699,859 1,606,960
forward
----- End of picture text -----
All income and expenditure derive from continuing activities. The Statement of financial activities includes all gains and losses recognised during the year. Full comparative figures are presented in note 31. The accounting policies and notes on pages 44 to 70 form part of the financial statements.
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
Balance sheet
For the year ended 31 December 2025. Company number: 2698321
----- Start of picture text -----
Notes 2025 2024
£000s £000s
Fixed assets:
Tangible fixed assets 12 8,131 7,867
Intangible assets 13 11,416 7,147
Investments 14 1,486,606 1,354,155
Total fixed assets 1,500,395 1,369,169
Current assets:
Investments 15 169,775 179,662
Debtors 16 35,841 78,126
–
Cash 11,825 8,462
Total current assets 217,441 266,250
Creditors: amounts falling (due within one year) 17 (17,102) (27,584)
Net current assets – 200,339 238,666
–
Total assets (less current liabilities) 1,700,734 1,607,835
Provision for liabilities 19 (875) (875)
Net assets – 1,699,859 1,606,960
Charity funds:
Unrestricted funds 21 1,699,859 1,606,960
Total charity funds 1,699,859 1,606,960
----- End of picture text -----
The accounting policies and notes on pages 44 to 70 form part of the financial statements. The financial statements were approved and authorised for issue by the Board of Trustees on 23 June 2026. Signed on behalf of the LifeArc Board of Trustees.
Dr Ian Gilham
Chair of the LifeArc Board of Trustees
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
Statement of cash flows
For the year ended 31 December 2025
----- Start of picture text -----
Notes 2025 2024
£000s £000s
Cash flow from operating activities 23 27,516 141,456
Cash flow from investing activities:
–
Payments to acquire tangible fixed assets (3,292) (838)
– – –
Payments to acquire intangible assets
–
Payments to acquire investments (758,366) (261,794)
–
Receipts from sale of investments 726,897 217,263
–
Dividends, interest and rents received from investments 11,416 20,479
–
Decrease / (Increase) in current asset investments 9,887 (111,652)
–
Decrease in cash held for investment (10,695) (167)
Reclassification from current asset investment to fixed
– –
(3,100)
asset investment
Net cash flow provided by investing activities (24,153) (139,809)
–
Change in cash and cash equivalents in the year 3,363 1,647
–
Cash and cash equivalents at 1 January 8,462 6,815
–
Cash and cash equivalents at 31 December 11,825 8,462
Cash and cash equivalents consist of:
–
Cash at bank and in hand 11,825 8,462
– – –
Short-term deposits
Cash and cash equivalents at 31 December 11,825 8,462
----- End of picture text -----
The accounting policies and notes on pages 44 to 70 form part of the financial statements.
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
Accounting policies For the year ended 31 December 2025.
General information and basis of preparations
LifeArc is a charitable company limited by guarantee in the United Kingdom. In the event of the organisation being wound up, the liability in respect of the guarantee is limited to £1 per member of the organisation.
The address of the registered office is given on the back cover of these financial statements. The nature of LifeArc’s operations and principal activities are progressing promising science from academic research towards clinical benefit, working with industry and academia to accelerate the translation of new discoveries into practical medical and technological solutions for patients and providing intellectual property (IP) management and commercialisation services to medical research charities and organisations.
LifeArc constitutes a public benefit entity as defined by FRS 102. The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the financial reporting standard applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102), the Charities Act 2011, the Companies Act 2006 and UK generally accepted practice as it applies from 1 January 2019. The financial statements are prepared on a going concern basis under the historical cost convention. The financial statements are prepared in sterling, which is the functional currency of the organisation, and rounded to the nearest £000.
Going concern
The Board considers that the use of the going concern basis is appropriate because there are no material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that may cast significant doubt about LifeArc’s ability to continue as a going concern, and there is reasonable expectation that the organisation has adequate reserves to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future.
Incoming resources
Income is recognised when LifeArc is entitled to the income, the value can be reasonably measured and it is probable that the income will be received. Incoming resources from charitable activities comprise the following:
-
research contract and development income recognised according to the terms of the contract upon completion of agreed milestones, and royalty income recognised on an accruals basis
-
IP management and technology transfer services fees receivable from the Medical Research Council (MRC) which are invoiced in line with the service level agreement
-
grant income recognised when LifeArc has the right to receive the money. Grants received which are restricted by the donor for performance in future accounting periods are deferred
Incoming resources from investments comprise the following:
- investment income together with recoverable tax, recognised on a receivable basis
The subsidiary undertaking LifeArc Innovations Limited has been excluded from consolidation on the basis of it not being material, in line with FRS 102 paragraph 9.9A. The significant accounting policies applied in the preparation of these financial statements are set out below. These policies have been consistently applied to all periods presented unless otherwise stated.
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
Resources expended
All expenditure is accounted for on an accruals basis and has been classified under headings that aggregate all costs related to the category. Where costs cannot be directly attributed to particular headings, they have been allocated to activities on a basis consistent with the use of resources:
-
costs of raising funds are the costs of managing investments for both income generation and capital maintenance and include investment manager fees and investment consultancy fees relating to the costs of the external management of investments of LifeArc
-
charitable activities comprise expenditure on the direct charitable activities of LifeArc
Support cost allocation
Support costs are those that assist the work of LifeArc but do not directly represent charitable activities and constitute corporate resource and governance costs. They are incurred directly in support of expenditure on the activities of the organisation and have been allocated to activities on an employee headcount basis.
Accounting for tangible fixed assets
Fixed assets or groups of fixed assets with a cost in excess of £5,000 are capitalised at cost and depreciated according to the disclosed policy.
Fund accounting
The unrestricted fund is a general unrestricted fund which is available for use at the discretion of the Board in furtherance of the general objectives of LifeArc and which has not been designated for other purposes.
The restricted funds represent grants received in the year which are subject to specific restrictions imposed by the donor.
Depreciation for tangible fixed assets
Depreciation is provided on a straight-line basis so as to write off the cost or valuation of tangible fixed assets less estimated residual value over their estimated useful economic lives, which are as follows:
----- Start of picture text -----
Plant and machinery 10 years
Laboratory equipment 5 to 10 years
Furniture, fixtures and fittings and office equipment 5 years
Computers 3 to 5 years
Over the period of the lease or useful economic life,
Leasehold improvements
whichever is the shorter
IT infrastructure 5 to 10 years
----- End of picture text -----
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
Accounting for intangible fixed assets
Intangible assets are capitalised at cost and amortised according to the policy below.
Amortisation for intangible fixed assets
Amortisation is provided on a reducing-balance basis or straight-line basis with the most appropriate basis for each asset chosen so as to write off the cost of intangible fixed assets less estimated residual value over their estimated useful economic lives, which are as follows:
-
licences – over the period of the licence or useful economic life, whichever is the shorter
-
antibody platforms – 20% reducing balance basis
Fixed asset investments
Investments are recorded at cost and are stated at fair value at the balance sheet date. The unrealised gains and losses arising as a result are included in the Statement of Financial Activities (SOFA) together with any realised gains and losses on any investments disposed of in the year.
Financial assets, including investments in equity instruments which are not subsidiaries, are initially measured at fair value, which is normally the transaction price. Such assets are subsequently carried, where possible, at fair value and the changes in value are recognised in the SOFA. Assets are considered for indications of impairment, with any impairment then recognised in the SOFA.
Operating leases
Rentals paid under operating leases are charged to the SOFA on a straight-line basis over the terms of the lease. Where there is a rent-free period the total cost of the lease is recognised over the term on a straight-line basis.
Foreign currencies
Monetary assets and liabilities in foreign currencies are translated into sterling at the rate of exchange ruling at the balance sheet date.
Transactions which have been concluded prior to the balance sheet date are translated into sterling at the monthly rate of exchange ruling at the date of the transaction. Exchange gains and losses arising in the normal course of operations are included in the SOFA.
Financial instruments and hedging activities
LifeArc uses forward foreign currency contracts to manage its exposure to fluctuations in foreign exchange rates. It does not use them to speculate. These instruments are initially recognised at fair value on the trade date and are subsequently remeasured at their fair value at the end of the reporting date.
All derivative financial instruments are recognised on the balance sheet, with changes in fair value recognised in the Statement of Financial Activities (SoFA) as they arise. LifeArc does not apply hedge accounting.
Financial assets
Impairment reviews
A review of the impairment of fixed asset investments is carried out if events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount will not be recoverable.
Current asset investments
Financial assets, including trade debtors, prepayments and accrued income, are recognised when LifeArc becomes a party to the contractual provisions of the instrument. They are initially measured at fair value plus transaction costs and subsequently measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method, less any allowance for expected credit losses. Impairment losses are recognised in the SoFA within expenditure.
Investments are stated at market value at the balance sheet date. The unrealised gains and losses arising as a result are included in the SOFA together with any realised gains and losses on any disposals in the year.
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
Financial Liabilities
Financial liabilities, including trade creditors, grant creditors and other payables, are recognised when LifeArc becomes a party to the contractual provisions of the instrument. They are initially measured at fair value net of transaction costs and subsequently measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method. Interest and foreign exchange differences are recognised in the SoFA as they arise.
Financial assets and liabilities are offset where there is a legally enforceable right to set off the recognised amounts and an intention to settle on a net basis or realise the asset and settle the liability simultaneously.
With the exception of prepayments and deferred income, all other debtors and creditors are considered to be basic financial instruments under FRS 102.
Employee benefits
When employees have rendered service to the organisation, short-term employee benefits to which the employees are entitled are recognised at the undiscounted amount expected to be paid in exchange for that service.
Pension costs
LifeArc operates a defined contribution pension scheme which is open to all employees. The funds of the scheme are administered by a third party and are separate from LifeArc. The pension charge represents contributions payable by LifeArc for the year. LifeArc’s liability is limited to the amount of the contributions.
Termination benefits
Redundancy and termination costs are recognised when there is a legal or constructive obligation which can be measured reliably, and it is probable that a payment will be made.
Material items
Material items are items which derive from events or transactions that fall within the ordinary activities of LifeArc and which individually need to be disclosed by virtue of their size or incidence if the financial statements are to give a true and fair view. The separate reporting of material items helps to provide a better indication of LifeArc’s underlying business performance.
Taxation
LifeArc is a registered charity and is generally exempt from corporation tax but not from value added tax (VAT). Irrecoverable VAT is included with the cost of those items to which it relates.
Provisions
A provision is made for a liability in the financial statements where LifeArc has a present obligation as a result of a past event, it is probable that a transfer of economic benefits will be required to settle the liability and a reliable estimate can be made of the obligation.
47
Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
01. Income from charitable activities
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
Research contracts and royalty income 74,578 182,647
IP management and technology transfer services 300 1,195
Grants 360 422
Total 75,238 184,264
----- End of picture text -----
Royalty income from pharmaceutical product sales is expected to fluctuate significantly from year to year. LifeArc made the strategic decision not to submit a tender proposal to extend our contract with the MRC in 2025 for IP management and technology transfer services.
02. Income from investments
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
Dividends – equities 5,044 6,811
Interest – fixed interest securities 3,604 1,710
Interest – deposits 278 249
Income from alternative investments 2,490 11,710
Total 11,416 20,479
----- End of picture text -----
03. Other income
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
Miscellaneous 84 300
Total 84 300
----- End of picture text -----
04. Raising funds
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
Investment office costs 742 752
Investment management and professional fees 2,217 1,458
Total 2,959 2,210
----- End of picture text -----
In 2025, LifeArc made two new investments which are on segregated mandates where management fees are invoiced separately and included in the above.
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
05. Analysis of expenditure on charitable activities
----- Start of picture text -----
Activities Grant Support Total Total
undertaken funding of costs 2025 2024
directly activities
£000s £000s £000s £000s £000s
Chronic and Rare Respiratory
2,334 3,487 4,094 9,915 10,247
Disease
Motor Neuron Disease (MND)
4,223 7,628 8,430 20,282 14,707
and Rare Dementias
Global Health – Infection 3,101 5,127 5,788 14,016 13,400
Rare Disease 480 14,526 10,757 25,763 15,726
Childhood Cancer 2 ,619 118 1,837 4,574 4,264
Other Translational Challenge 1,296 – 647 1,944 865
costs
–
LifeArc Ventures 3,458 1,866 5,324 4,269
Scientific Platforms and other
11,870 2,645 9,230 23,745 29,919
partnerships
Other 51 – 5 56 248
Totals 29,432 33,531 42,654 105,617 93,645
----- End of picture text -----
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
Grants
LifeArc has expensed grants to the following institutions during the year.
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
UK DRI Ltd 5,713 3,869
University of Newcastle 2,534 491
Our Future Health 2,500 4,984
University of Edinburgh 2,265 1,590
University of Liverpool 1,899 475
Cystic Fibrosis Trust 1,744 42
Medical Research Council 1,725 1,593
University College London 1,652 2,480
University of Cambridge 1,517 588
Francis Crick Institute 1,486 2,062
NESTA 1,144 80
Department of Health & Social Care 993 190
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 920 34
University of Oxford 774 250
Imperial College London 725 102
University of Cape Town 592 601
Kings College London 503 528
University of Sheffield 435 297
University of Ghana 410 (108)
Action on Antibiotic Resistance Africa 394 456
Medicines Discovery Catapult Ltd 379 807
Glox Therapeutics 364 –
----- End of picture text -----
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
University of Manchester 348 163
University of Dundee 285 285
Action Medical Research 262 596
Stellenbosch University 260 –
Great Ormond Street Hospital 159 572
Beacon for Rare Diseases Ltd 85 85
University of Birmingham 127 332
University of Glasgow 126 722
Imagine For Margo – Children Without Cancer 118 –
African Institute of Biomedical Science 116 –
Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Centre 109 –
Duke University 106 –
Cambridge Science Centre 100 110
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee 87 84
BicycleTx Limited 73 203
Genetic Alliance UK Ltd 72 –
Royal Holloway University of London 64 53
Antabio 58 80
Tranalab Private Limited 54 136
BioVersys AG 51 399
H3D Foundation 50 –
Monash University 41 82
Queen Mary University of London 39 38
The General Hospital Corporation d/b/a Massachusetts 34 –
General Hospital
----- End of picture text -----
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Docusign Envelope ID: 55566EE0-CDC0-8323-80D0-B765E075A2E8
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
Asthma + Lung UK 32 –
Drugs and Diagnostics for Tropical Diseases 29 182
University of Buea 24 91
The University of Texas Southwestern 20 –
AUTM Foundation 19 55
Molecule One 17 –
Medicine Discovery Catapult Services Ltd 8 –
University of Oxford DTC (110) 107
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center – 754
CureSearch for Children’s Cancer – 661
Ockham Biotech Limited – 431
Yemaachi Biotech Ltd – 403
Oxford Drug Design – 169
ALS Therapy Development Institute – 117
Rostra Therapeutics – 76
Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics – 63
Aarhaus University – 46
TRH Consulting – 37
The Institute of Cancer Research Royal Cancer Hospital – 23
University of Oxford Pandemic Sciences Institute – 8
Total 33,531 28,573
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Over accrual £108k in 2023, reversed in 2024 I *Refund in 2025 of historic underspend of grant payments
The above table only includes grants expensed during 2024 and 2025. See note 20 for remaining grant commitments to be expensed within one year, and after one year.
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06. Allocation of support costs
----- Start of picture text -----
Governance Corporate Total Total
resources 2025 2024
£000s £000s £000s £000s
Rare Disease 360 10,397 10,757 6,160
Childhood Cancer 62 1,775 1,837 1,649
Chronic and Rare Respiratory Disease 137 3,957 4,094 4,010
Global Health – Infection 194 5,594 5,788 5,238
Motor Neuron Disease (MND) and Rare
283 8,148 8,430 5,763
Dementias
Other Translational Challenge costs 22 624 646 238
LifeArc Ventures 63 1,803 1,866 1,696
Scientific Platforms and other partnerships 309 8,921 9,230 10,994
Other – 5 5 144
Total 1,430 41,224 42,654 35,892
----- End of picture text -----
Governance costs are detailed further in note 7 below.
07. Governance costs
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
Staff costs 742 739
Direct costs:
Other legal and professional charges 39 32
Audit fees 45 43
Other fees 192 193
Bank charges 6 8
Insurance 267 239
Other governance costs 139 104
Total 1,430 1,358
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08. Net income for the year
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
Net income is stated after charging/(crediting):
£000s £000s
Depreciation of tangible fixed assets 3,021 3,105
Amortisation of intangible fixed assets 1,489 1,833
Operating leases – property 2,195 1,483
Auditor’s remuneration 45 43
Fees payable to internal auditor 192 193
Net losses/(gains) on foreign exchange 4,484 (149)
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09. Auditor’s remuneration
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
Fees payable to the charity’s auditor for the audit of the charity’s
44 43
annual accounts
Fees payable to the charity’s auditor for other services:
Other services 1 –
Total 45 43
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10. Board and key management personnel remuneration and expenses
Stéphane Maikovsky’s (Deputy CEO and CFO) remuneration and benefits were due for his role as an employee of the organisation, not for his position as trustee. The aggregate amounts paid during the year to Stéphane Maikovsky includes basic pay £307,057 (2024 – £296,725), 5% flex allowance of £15,353 (2024 – £14,836), bonus of £146,984 (2024 – £136,296), pension contributions and pension allowance £32,207 (2024 – £35,607), and other benefits £4,580 (2024 – £6,269).
remuneration and benefits were due for her role as an employee of the organisation, not for her position as trustee. The aggregate amounts paid during the year to Sam Barrell includes basic pay £378,325 (2024 – £34,185) ,5% flex allowance of £18,916 (2024 – £1,709), bonus of £201,221 (2024 – £18,580), pension contributions and pension allowance £37,832 (2024 – £3,418), and other benefits and allowances £6,878 (2024 – £451).
In respect of services provided to LifeArc for the LifeArc Ventures Fund, Ian Nicholson invoiced LifeArc £10,000 (2024 – £9,000) for consultancy through Casewell Consulting Limited.
Sam Barrell (CEO) was appointed as a trustee of LifeArc on 28 November 2024. From 28 November 2024
Trustees do not receive any remuneration (Dec 2024 – £nil) for their role at LifeArc.
The following expenses were reimbursed or paid directly on trustees’ behalf during the year for their services as trustees:
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024 Total Total
number of number of 2025 2024
trustees trustees
Travel and subsistence 8 8 11 11
Total 8 8 11 11
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Included above is £6,024 (2024 – £6,453) which has been paid directly to third parties.
The total amount of employee benefits received by key management personnel during the year (made up of basic pay, bonus, pension allowance, employer’s pension contribution, employer’s NI, PILON, severance payments
and other benefits) was £4,676,996 (2024 – £3,873,000). The Board considers its key management personnel to comprise the Chief Executive Officer and executive management team.
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11. Staff costs and employee benefits
The average number of employees, analysed by function, was:
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
Executive 11 9
Translational science and Translational Challenge leadership 149 152
Scientific Enablers 85 80
LifeArc Ventures 8 8
Enabling functions 91 77
Investment office 3 3
Agency/contract staff 21 16
Total 368 345
----- End of picture text -----*
*Enabling functions includes Corporate Affairs, Finance, Facilities, Human Resources, Technology, Legal, and Strategy & Performance.
Project Management was included in Enabling functions in 2024, now included in Scientific Enablers. Insights group was included in Translational science in 2024, now included in Scientific enablers.
The total staff costs and employee benefits were as follows:
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
Wages and salaries 31,269 28,136
Social security 4,018 3,209
Defined contribution pension costs 2,463 2,219
Agency/contract staff 2,742 1,986
Redundancy payments 469 362
Total 40,961 35,912
----- End of picture text -----
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The number of employees who received total employee benefits (made up of basic pay, flex allowance, bonus, and other allowances) of £60,000 or more is as follows:
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024 2025 2024
£60,000 – £70,000 58 39 £260,001 – £270,000 2 1
£70,001 – £80,000 28 20 £270,001 – £280,000 – 3
£80,001 – £90,000 35 23 £290,001 – £300,000 1 –
£90,001 – £100,000 22 17 £310,001 - £320,000 – 1
£100,001 – £110,000 14 18 £340,001 – £350,000 – 1
£110,001 – £120,000 19 20 £370,001 – £380,000 – 1
£120,001 – £130,000 11 6 £380,001 – £390,000 – 1
£130,001 – £140,000 4 5 £400,001 - £410,000 2 –
£140,001 – £150,000 7 6 £440,001 – £450,000 – 1
£150,001 – £160,000 6 – £480,001 – £490,000 – –
£160,001 – £170,000 2 5 £490,001- £500,000 1 –
£170,001 – £180,000 4 1 £660,001 - £670,000 1 –
£180,001 – £190,000 1 2 Total 229 180
£190,001 – £200,000 3 2
PILON totaling £185,486(2024 – £151,600) was included
£200,001 – £210,000 3 3 in calculating the number of employees who received total
employee benefits of more than £60,000.
£210,001 – £220,000 3 2
The pension contributions to the defined contribution
£220,001 - £230,000 – 1 scheme payable on behalf of 229 (December 2024 – 180)
members of staff amounted to £ 1,972,489
(2024 – £1,645,576).
£230,001 - £240,000 1 –
The redundancy and termination payments in the year
£240,001 – £250,000 1 1 totaled £469,299 (2024 – £362,122) from 11 employees
(2024 – 17 employees), of which £381,485 (2024 –
£250,001 – £260,000 – – £262,622) had been paid during the year with £87,814
accrued at the year end (2024 – £99,500).
----- End of picture text -----
PILON totaling £185,486(2024 – £151,600) was included in calculating the number of employees who received total employee benefits of more than £60,000.
The redundancy and termination payments in the year totaled £469,299 (2024 – £362,122) from 11 employees (2024 – 17 employees), of which £381,485 (2024 – £262,622) had been paid during the year with £87,814 accrued at the year end (2024 – £99,500).
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12. Tangible fixed assets
----- Start of picture text -----
Assets under Leasehold Laboratory Fixtures, Total
construction improvements equipment fittings and
and plant computers
£000s £000s £000s £000s £000s
Costs:
At 1 January 2025 207 10,040 14,240 3,325 27,812
Additions 1,784 637 593 278 3,292
– – –
Disposals (425) (425)
Reclassification (356) 149 207 – –
At 31 December 2025 1,635 10,826 15,040 3,178 30,679
Accumulated depreciation:
–
At 1 January 2025 7,205 10,289 2,451 19,945
Charge for year – 1,108 1,494 419 3,021
– – –
Disposals (418) (418)
At 31 December 2025 – 8,313 11,783 2,452 22,548
Net book value:
At 31 December 2025 1,635 2,513 3,257 726 8,131
At 31 December 2025 207 2,835 3,951 874 7,867
----- End of picture text -----
LifeArc had capital commitments of £Nil at 31 December 2025 (December 2024 – £Nil).
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13. Intangible assets
----- Start of picture text -----
Synergy antibody Software and Total
platform licences
£000s £000s £000s
Costs:
At 1 January 2025 16,149 561 16,710
– – –
Additions
At 31 December 2025 16,149 561 16,710
Accumulated depreciation:
At 1 January 2025 9,267 296 9,563
Charge for year 1,377 112 1,489
At 31 December 2025 10,644 408 11,052
Net book value:
At 31 December 2025 5,505 153 5,658
At 31 December 2025 6,882 265 7,147
----- End of picture text -----
14. Fixed asset investments
----- Start of picture text -----
Notes 2025 2024
£000s £000s
Investments at cost – 10 27
Unlisted investments in LifeArc Ventures Fund at fair value 14a 112,565 94,935
Listed investments 14b 1,120,962 1,033,736
Alternative investments incl. private equity 14b 238,721 221,804
–
Cash held for investment purposes 14,348 3,653
Total 1,486,606 1,354,155
----- End of picture text -----
Included within investments at cost is £10,000 in relation to 100% of the shares in LifeArc Innovations Limited.
Listed investments includes investments held by LifeArc investment office where there is an available market for the investments to be bought and sold, including private equity investments managed and valued by the third party investment managers.
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14a. Unlisted investments held at fair value
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
LifeArc Ventures and LifeArc as a Limited Partner
£000s £000s
Fair value at 1 January 94,935 64,471
Investments in the year 31,775 32,969
Disposals in the year (2,424) (4,023)
Realised (loss) during the year (7,258) (850)
Unrealised (loss)/gain during the year (3,781) 969
Interest accrued 393 1,625
Foreign exchange loss (1,075) (226)
Fair value at 31 December 112,565 94,935
----- End of picture text -----
At the year-end LifeArc was committed to investing £68.3m (2024 £71.7 million) through LifeArc Ventures and as a Limited Partner.
14b. Listed investments held at fair value
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
Market value at 1 January 1,255,540 1,128,061
Acquisitions 726,591 228,825
Sale proceeds (724,473) (213,240)
Unrealised (loss) / gain (4,280) 127,082
Realised gain / (loss) 106,401 (17,885)
–
Reclassification 3,100
Foreign exchange (loss) (96) (403)
Market value at 31 December 1,359,683 1,255,540
Historical cost at 31 December 1,196,789 1,089,542
----- End of picture text -----
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Portfolio analysis
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
within the UK 179,230 74,477
Equities
overseas 692,642 802,438
within the UK 23,669 22,528
Fixed interest securities
overseas 225,421 134,293
within the UK 238,721 221,804
Alternative investment incl. private equity
overseas 1,359,683 1,255,540
Cash 14,348 3,653
Total 1,374,031 1,259,193
----- End of picture text -----
At the year-end LifeArc was committed to investing £134.0 million (2024 £104.8 million) from other unrestricted funds.
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15. Current asset investments
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
At 1 January 179,662 68,010
Net investment /(withdrawals) 39 (332)
Acquisitions 104,411 220,048
Sale proceeds (121,547) (111,200)
Realised gains 4,449 2,316
Unrealised gains 2,755 3,900
–
Reclassification to fixed asset investments (3,100)
Interest received 6 18
– –
Foreign exchange gain /(loss)
As at 31 December 169,775 179,662
Historical Cost At 31 December 162,036 174,675
----- End of picture text -----
Portfolio analysis
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
– –
Equities overseas
Fixed interest securities overseas 169,772 179,655
Total 169,772 179,655
Cash 53 7
Total 169,775 179,662
----- End of picture text -----
The fair value of listed investments is determined by reference to the quoted price for identical assets in an active market at the balance sheet date.
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16. Debtors
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
Trade debtors 847 830
Prepayments and accrued income 31,974 76,524
Tax debtor – VAT 755 508
Other debtors 588 264
–
Hedge/derivative asset 1,677
Total 35,841 78,126
----- End of picture text -----
17. Creditors: amounts falling due within one year
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
£000s £000s
Trade creditors 1,399 738
Grant creditors 1,466 1,059
Accruals and deferred income 11,092 11,779
Other creditors 1,763 2,780
–
Hedge/Derivative liability 9,973
PAYE and NI creditor 1,382 1,255
Total 17,102 27,584
----- End of picture text -----
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18. Leases
----- Start of picture text -----
2025 2024
Operating leases – leasee
£000s £000s
Total future minimum lease payments under non-cancellable
operating leases are as follows:
Not later than 1 year 1,385 1,465
Later than 1 and not later than 5 years 880 630
– –
Later than 5 years
Total 2,265 2,095
----- End of picture text -----
19. Provisions for liabilities and charges
----- Start of picture text -----
Provision for dilapidations
£000s
At 31 December 2024 875
–
Additions during the year
–
Amounts charged against the provision
–
Unused amounts reversed
Total 875
----- End of picture text -----
The provision relates to dilapidations for the Edinburgh site, the Lynton House site, and the Stevenage site.
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20. Grant commitments
----- Start of picture text -----
Expected to be Expected to be Total
paid within 1 year paid after 1 year
£000s £000s £000s
Rare Disease and Philanthropic Fund 18,625 28,329 46,954
Motor Neuron Disease (MND) and
6,627 3,433 10,060
Rare Dementias
Global Health – Infection 14,414 33,216 47,630
Chronic and Rare Respiratory Disease 7,357 8,932 16,289
–
Our Future Health 2,500 2,500
Other 18 19 37
Total 49,541 73,929 123,470
----- End of picture text -----
The above table shows remaining grant commitments to be expensed within one year and after one year. See note 5 for grant expenditure incurred in 2024 and 2025.
21. Fund reconciliation
----- Start of picture text -----
Balance at Income Expenditure Transfers Gains/ Balance
1 Jan 2025 (losses) 31 Dec 2025
£000s £000s £000s £000s £000s £000s
–
Unrestricted 1,606,960 86,378 (108,216) 114,737 1,699,859
Restricted – 360 (360) – – –
Total 1,606,960 86,738 (108,576) – 114,737 1,699,859
----- End of picture text -----
See note 20 for remaining grant commitments to be expensed within one year, and after one year.
Fund descriptions
01. Unrestricted funds
The unrestricted fund is a general unrestricted fund which is available for use at the discretion of the Board in furtherance of the general objectives of LifeArc and which has not been designated for other purposes.
02. Restricted funds
The restricted funds are grants received in the year which are subject to specific restrictions imposed by the donor. Grant income includes £360,000 (December 2024 – £422,000) from GSK Services and the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.
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22. Analysis of net assets between funds
----- Start of picture text -----
Unrestricted Total
funds 2025
£000s £000s
Fixed assets 1,500,395 1,500,395
Cash and current investments 181,600 181,600
Other current assets/liabilities 18,739 18,739
Provisions (875) (875)
Total 1,699,859 1,699,859
----- End of picture text -----
----- Start of picture text -----
Unrestricted Total
funds 2024
£000s £000s
Fixed assets 1,369,169 1,369,169
Cash and current investments 188,124 188,124
Other current assets/liabilities 50,542 50,542
Provisions (875) (875)
Total 1,606,960 1,606,960
----- End of picture text -----
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23. Reconciliation of net income to net cash flow from operating activities
----- Start of picture text -----
Unrestricted Total
funds 2025
£000s £000s
Net income for year 92,899 221,482
Dividends, interest and rents from investments (11,416) (20,479)
Accrued income on LifeArc Ventures investments (393) (1,625)
Revaluation (gain)/loss on investments 1,171 629
Depreciation and impairment of tangible fixed assets 3,021 3,105
Amortisation of intangible fixed assets 1,489 1,833
(Gains) on investments (91,065) (109,305)
Loss on disposal of fixed assets 7 40
(Increase)/decrease in debtors 42,285 49,003
Increase/(decrease) in creditors (10,482) (3,227)
Net cash flow from operating activities 27,516 141,456
----- End of picture text -----
24. Pensions and other post-retirement benefits
Defined Contribution Pension Plans
LifeArc operates a defined contribution pension plan for its employees.
The amount of contributions recognised as an expense during the year was £2,463,250 (12 months to December 2024 – £2,219,335).
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25. Related party transactions
The non-executive trustees of the Board received no remuneration from LifeArc for their services as trustees during the year.
During the year £6,024 (2024 – £6,453) has been paid directly to third parties for travel and travel related spend on behalf of trustees travel for LifeArc.
Reimbursements for travel expenses with an aggregate value of £4,643 (December 2024 – £4,752) were made to 5 non-executive trustees (December 2024 – 4 nonexecutive trustees). These transactions were carried out on normal commercial terms.
Trustee indemnity insurance was purchased in the year at a cost of £8,900 including insurance premium tax (2024 – £13,100).
Information about related party transactions and outstanding balances is outlined below:
----- Start of picture text -----
Income Expenditure Debtor Creditor Investment
£000s £000s £000s £000s £000s
RQ Biotechnology Limited [1] :
At end date 31 December 2025 108 – – – 4
At end date 31 December 2024 522 – 263 – –
Casewell Consulting [2] :
At end date 31 December 2025 – 10 – 5 –
At end date 31 December 2024 – 9 – – –
----- End of picture text -----
1Clare Terlouw (Head of LifeArc Ventures) is the Chair of the Board of RQ Biotechnology Holdings Ltd. During the year LifeArc accrued £4k interest income (2024 – £Nil) and £108k income (2024 – £522k).
2Ian Nicholson (LifeArc trustee) is an owner of Casewell Consulting. During the year LifeArc had expenditure of £10k on consultancy fees (2024 – £9k).
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26. Post balance sheet events
Since 31 December 2025, the value of LifeArc’s investment portfolio (excluding LifeArc Ventures) has increased by £27.4 million as at 31 May 2026 as a result of £57.9 million gains and £6.7 million income, offset by £37.3 million of net disposals.
27. Limited liability
LifeArc is a company limited by guarantee (company number 02698321) and thus has no share capital. In the event of LifeArc being wound up, every member of LifeArc undertakes to contribute no more than £1 to the assets of LifeArc while they are a member, or within one year after they cease to be a member, for the debts and liabilities of LifeArc contracted before they cease to be a member. The number of members at 31 December 2025 was 11 (31 December 2024 – 11).
28. Charitable status
LifeArc is a charity registered with the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales, number 1015243 and a charity registered in Scotland (number SC037861) with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator.
29. Trading subsidiary
LifeArc holds 100% of the shares in LifeArc Innovations Limited. Consolidated accounts have not been prepared as its inclusion is not material for the purpose of giving a true and fair view.
30. Ultimate controlling party
LifeArc is controlled by its members.
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31. Comparative statement of financial activities
----- Start of picture text -----
Notes Unrestricted Restricted Total funds Total funds
funds 2024 2023
£000s £000s £000s £000s
Income and endowments from:
Charitable activities 1 183,842 422 184,264 143,054
Investments 2 20,479 – 20,479 26,459
Other income 3 300 – 300 66
Total income and endowments – 204,621 422 205,043 169,579
Expenditure on:
Raising funds 4 2,210 – 2,210 1,943
Charitable activities 5 93,123 422 93,645 71,496
Provisions 19 79 – 79 50
Total expenditure – 95,512 422 95,943 73,489
Net gains / (losses) on investments 14/15 115,560 – 115,560 87,187
– –
Net gains on FX hedges (3,187) (3,187) 15,842
– –
Net income / (expenditure) 221,482 221,482 199,119
Net movement in funds 21 221,482 – 221,482 119,119
Reconciliation of funds:
Total funds brought forward 21 1,385,478 – 1,385,478 1,186,359
Total funds carried forward 21 1,606,960 – 1,606,960 1,385,478
----- End of picture text -----
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Advisors
| Statutory auditors | Moore Kingston Smith LLP | 9 Appold Street, London, EC2A 2AP |
|---|---|---|
| Bankers | Lloyds Bank Plc | 3rd floor, 25 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7 HN |
| Charity law advisors | Bates Wells | 10 Queen Street Place, London EC4R 1BE |
| Internal auditor | Grant Thornton UK LLP | 30 Finsbury Square, London EC2A 1AG |
| Investment advisors | Cambridge Associates Ltd | 80 Victoria Street, Cardinal Place, London SW1E 5JL |
| Investment custodian | Northern Trust | 50 Bank Street, Canary Wharf, London E14 5NT |
Company and charity numbers
Company Limited by Guarantee Incorporated in England and Wales No. 2698321
Charity registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales No. 1015243
Charity registered in Scotland with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator No. SC037861
Registered address and principal place of business
Lynton House, 7 - 12 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9LT
71