BioActa Ltd, located in Sheffield, concentrates on the discovery and development of novel anti-angiogenesis therapies for the treatment of various diseases. BioActa has discovered novel inhibitors of angiogenisis, the growth of new blood vessels, a process important in diseases such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritus and diabetic retinopathy.

Alphastatin™ was designed using BioActa's understanding of the proteins involved in regulating angiogenisis and it intends to apply this understanding to the study of peptides derived from other naturally occuring proteins in order to identify molecules with novel angiogenic (both pro- and anti-angiogenic) activites