Innovate UK to allocate £13M to help transform medicines manufacturing

Seventeen new projects will receive funding for cutting edge medicine manufacturing, delivered by the Innovate UK Transforming Medicine Manufacturing programme.

Today, Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, is pleased to announce the winners of a series of competitions focusing on:

• nucleic acid medicines manufacturing
• intracellular drug delivery
• digitalisation and automation

Addressing different challenges

The projects span across the country to address different challenges.

These include innovative technologies for nucleic acid manufacturing and intracellular drug delivery to improve vaccines and therapeutics deployment while also implementing digital and automation technologies to accelerate medicines manufacturing.

£10 million from the Chancellor’s ‘Life Sci for Growth‘ package will help to bolster the UK’s health resilience.

For example:

Competition: innovative technologies for nucleic acid medicines manufacturing

Project title: manufacturing high purity mRNA at significantly reduced cost

Led by BioToolomics, this project will streamline production of mRNA medicines and vaccines, improving their quality and reducing waste, to make them easier and cheaper to manufacture.

Competition: innovative technologies for intracellular drug delivery

Project title: developing non-viral nanopore drug delivery technology for first-in-human trials

Vitarka Therapeutics is developing a delivery technology, EndoPore, that releases siRNA drugs inside cancer cells.

This award with the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) will develop an efficient EndoPore manufacturing process.

Competition: digitalisation and automation of medicine research and development and manufacture

Project title: Digital_Lyo

This project, led by Micron Design, will develop new methods for the optimisation of pharmaceutical freeze-drying processes in the manufacture of injectable drug products (medicines).

This investment:

• provides the UK with a competitive advantage in medicines manufacturing
• maximises economic impact
• underpins healthcare resilience working towards the government’s Life Sciences Vision

Breadth of innovation and collaboration

Sarah Goulding, Executive Director, Healthy Living and Agriculture Domain at Innovate UK said: "There is a real breadth of innovation and collaboration across businesses being funded through Innovate UK’s Transforming Medicines Manufacturing programme. This underscores our ambitious vision to de-risk technology, boost economic growth, build resilience into the UK healthcare ecosystem and ultimately to make the UK a centre of excellence in medicines manufacturing innovation.

Driving forward digitalisation and automation technology

Mark Talford, Deputy Challenge Director, Medicines Manufacturing at Innovate UK, said: "This support for collaboration across the UK medicines manufacturing landscape to develop innovative nucleic acid medicines will drive forward digitalisation and automation technology. The team is really looking forward to working with the projects towards successful outcomes."

This article was first published on 22 August by Innovate UK.