Across the UK a high level and quality of research activity can be seen, especially in areas like Edinburgh, Nottingham and Belfast. By means of an initiative to support these early-stage researchers, CGT Catapult is attempting to help accelerate commercialisation, fuelling the UK pipeline medicines and helping deliver on the UK Industrial Strategy goal of translating research excellence into business opportunities.
The initiative aims to increase the flow of innovation, ultimately progressing these new therapies and supporting technologies to clinical trial and commercial supply.
80 advanced therapy researchers met today at The University of Edinburgh MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine for the third in a series of seminar events held across the UK by CGT Catapult. Previous seminar events have been held at Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Nottingham.
These seminars allow researchers to benefit from expertise in key components of the pathway to commercialisation, including intellectual property, regulation, health economics and market access and process scaling and manufacturing. In addition to the exchange of knowledge, researchers are also able to receive 1-2-1 feedback on their projects from CGT Catapult subject matter experts.
The commercialisation of research is a strategic priority for CGT Catapult and this initiative is part of a wider engagement plan with the academic, spin-out and investor communities to keep supporting strong research, transfer technology to the private sector and build new companies.
The UK has a strong position in the global cell and gene therapy industry, with over 70 cell and gene therapy companies operating in the UK and a healthy pipeline of 85 clinical trials and 875 preclinical research projects. Supporting the flow of knowledge in this industry is expected to support its overall growth. CGT Catapult held an expanded version of the seminar in February 2018, to understand how to ensure commercial success for development of advanced therapies.
