A Professor from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) is lending his expertise to a £1 million collaborative research project to improve the development of biopharmaceutical drugs.
Funding for the project has been awarded by Innovate UK and will be used to bring together leading organisations in biopharmaceutical manufacturing, science and technology.
The three-year project will involve developing a new analytical capability which will increase knowledge of why molecules in development as medicines or in existing prescription drugs aggregate, or stick together.
When aggregation takes place, it can result in a medicine losing its effectiveness and potentially lead to a negative impact on the user’s health.
UCLan will work as part of a collaborative consortium in partnership with Malvern Panalytical (lead), Paraytec, Medimmune, GSK, FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies and CPI.
Innovate UK, which is sponsored by the government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, provides funding to facilitate innovation in science and technology.
Professor Robert Forbes, Professor of Clinical Pharmaceutics within UCLan’s School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences said: “If more of us are to maximally benefit from biopharmaceutical medicines we need better tools to help develop and produce them more cost effectively. I’m delighted to be part of this exciting project and world-leading team which aims to contribute to this goal.”
Professor Lynne Livesey, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) said “We pride ourselves on our strong links with industrial partners and we have invested in people and infrastructure as part of our research and innovation strategy. It is great to see, in this project, yet another example, of our collaborative values in action with the potential to bring about substantial real-world impact.”
