Collaborate to innovate: funding program pairs academics with industry
The second round of Collaborate to Innovate, which aims to partner small and medium-sized enterprises with academic expertise to support commercialization, is focusing on Advanced Therapies.
In this interview, we spoke to Elias Zapantis, Program Manager, Collaborate to Innovate (MedCity; London, UK) to learn more.
What is Collaborate to Innovate?
Collaborate to Innovate supports and catalyzes partnerships between individuals, companies and organizations who have common goals. Through this activity it promotes the transfer of knowledge and expertise across the life sciences ecosystem, with the end goal of commercializing the innovations resulting from these partnerships.
The Collaborate to Innovate round 2: Advanced Therapies, part of London Advanced Therapies and funded by Research England, offers a focused and intensive end-to-end solution for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) working in advanced therapies with specific research and development needs. It helps define those needs, then matches them to academic expertise and delivers research collaborations with the aim of leading to innovative advanced therapies products. It is managed centrally by MedCity and delivered through the academic delivery partners from King’s College London, Imperial College and University College London (all London, UK).
What unmet needs does the scheme address?
Advanced therapies offer the potential for a step-change in the treatment of many diseases, including conditions that are currently intractable or poorly-treated by existing approaches. The advanced therapies market is estimated to grow to US$21 billion/year worldwide by 2025 (Advanced Therapies Manufacturing Taskforce Report 2016), with US$716 million of gene therapy venture capital funding invested since 2010.
Until now, there has been a relative lack of investment in research and innovation by SMEs due to challenges in accessing funds and knowledge gaps about the relevant expertise within academic institutions. The project aims to help overcome these challenges by promoting engagement between SMEs and the research base, alongside creating inter-university research collaborations and providing the optimum conditions for commercialization.
What are the benefits of an academic-commercial partnership?
Advanced therapies medicinal products have the potential to address high burden unmet needs and hold the key to tackling rare diseases and cancer. For this reason, the collaboration with highly specialized academic experts and clinicians will allow ground-breaking products to be developed.
It is known that SMEs and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) do not collaborate enough on research and development projects to drive innovative new products to compete in global markets and drive economic growth. This project facilitates new collaborative research projects, which may not happen otherwise, as the SMEs are not aware of the HEIs relevant expertise and desire to engage, and vice versa, and there is a lack of seed funding support specially in the area of advanced therapies.
The program is currently in its second round. Can you share a highlight from the first round of funding?
The program selects quality companies with a potential for business growth and a step change proposition on how health is delivered to support the development and acceleration of their products into the market by partnering them with the appropriate academic expertise. The rigorous monitoring approach to each project ensures that any issues are identified quite early in the project life and mitigated in a proactive way. The high level of support has successfully de-risked the projects and so attracted further investment to create a substantial value for money return of investment.
For example, an advanced therapies company supported under round one has attracted over 100 investors and received commitments for half of their current £5-7million Seed 2 round. Another company secured new business opportunities with 4 NHS Trusts, while a third secured angel investment and a convertible loan for working capital. The support provided under round one has enabled companies to progress and advance their innovation to the market.
The second round of funding is for advanced therapies. What kinds of SMEs will be eligible?
Target SMEs include advanced therapies biotech companies working in the area of gene or cell therapy products, gene engineering, regenerative medicine, supply chain, vector manufacturing, and specialist equipment companies and related technology. SMEs should not be a subsidiary of a bigger company and should be located in the UK.