Innovate UK has announced a £10 million investments in projects that aim to develop innovative manufacturing methods for producing medicines. The funding is part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund that supports leading-edge healthcare.
The challengeâs goal is to invest £181 million over a period of four years so that it speeds up patient access to new drugs and treatments. If successful, it will return £1 bullion to the UK economy.
The projects involved must be led by a business and must include at least one SME. Those with costs below £100,000 can be led by an SME working on its own or with partners, while projects with costs above £100,000 must be led by a business working with partners. Innovate UK expects projects to have costs between £50,000 and £1.5m and to last between 6 months and 30 months.
What the competition attempts to find are new approaches that will improve commercially viable manufacturing processes; scale up the production of new medicines through reliable and robust methods; increase yield of active ingredients; and lower the costs of production and goods.
It will be funding a variety of projects across different markets, technologies, and medicines, including feasibility studies, industrial research, and experimental development. The medicines that are in scope are: advanced therapy medicinal products, natural product medicines, nucleic acid based drugs, prophylactic vaccines, protein or peptide biopharmaceuticals, small molecular weight pharmaceuticals, and virus and phage therapeutics.
If you wish to be considered for this funding then you must show how your project will improve the productivity, competitiveness and growth of at least one UK micro, small, or medium-sized enterprise involved. The projectâs total costs should be between £50,000 and £1.5 million and should start by the 1st of September 2018 and be completed before April 2021.
The competition will open on the 12th of March and those wishing to register can apply here: https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/121/overview.
