Cancer Research UK founds new companies to tackle key challenges

Company founded

The charity Cancer Research UK and its commercialisation arm, Cancer Research Technology (CRT), is taking a novel approach to team building by setting up new companies formed of collaborations of hand-picked scientists and pharmaceutical companies to tackle what they call “some of cancer’s most pressing scientific challenges”.

Each “crack team” will be composed of up to five scientists, all of whom will be leaders in their own disciplines, but who need not be in the same institutions. The first company, based Professor Nicol Keith at Cancer Research UK’s Beatson Laboratory in Glasgow, will look at how the process of cellular ageing could put cancer cells to sleep. It will include scientists from London, Cambridge and Liverpool, as well as Horizon Discovery, a young service company set up in Cambridge to engineer new cancer cell lines.

Each new project will form a limited company, managed by CRT's business team. Initially the projects will receive up £500,000 from Cancer Research UK over a two-year period. The idea is that each team will attract an industry partner to bring know-how and further finance to the project. In return industry partners will benefit by becoming a shareholder in the company and drawing on Cancer Research UK’s expertise in translating basic scientific discoveries into new treatments for cancer.

Once the early development phase is complete, the industrial partner will have the option to acquire the company and progress any joint discoveries into clinical compounds.

Any profits will be shared between the charity and the research partners involved, with Cancer Research UK pledging to re-invest any proceeds in its future research work.

“This initiative creates a unique opportunity for us to hand-pick a ‘crack team’ of scientists wherever they may be based – rather than being tied to a particular academic institution or team which approaches us for funding,” said CRT’s senior business manager and scheme leader, Simon Youlton.