UK invests in biopharma manufacturers

The agency announced that seventeen new projects will receive funding for cutting edge medicine manufacturing, delivered by the Innovate UK Transforming Medicine Manufacturing programme. The investments focus on nucleic acid medicines, intracellular drug delivery and digitalisation and automation.

The investment reflects the heightened interest of the UK government in the life sciences: In May of this year, the UK had unveiled a £650 million Life Sciences growth package that aims to drive forward the government’s efforts to grow the economy.

Among the the projects awarded funds, many focus on innovative technologies to make better, faster vaccines. For example, the investment in BioTooolomics will go towards a project to streamline production of mRNA medicines and vaccines, improving their quality and reducing waste, to make them easier and cheaper to manufacture. The funding for Vitarka will support the development of a delivery technology, EndoPore, that releases siRNA drugs inside cancer cells. Other projects receiving funds will focus on automation and digitalization, for example Autolomous, which aims to improve cell and gene therapy manufacturing through automation or digitalisation, reducing product costs.

„This support for collaboration across the UK medicines manufacturing landscape to develop innovative nucleic acid medicines will drive forward digitalisation and automation technology, commented Mark Talford, Deputy Challenge Director, Medicines Manufacturing at Innovate UK.