The UK’s Intracellular Drug Delivery Centre has opened its doors for broader industry access after what it called a "successful capability development phase."
The centre is led by CPI and delivered in partnership with Medicines Discovery Catapult, the University of Liverpool, the University of Strathclyde and Imperial College London.
It was established to address one of the most significant barriers to the development of RNA-based medicines: delivering therapies effectively to the right cells in the body and received £10m in funding from Innovate UK’s Transforming Medicines Manufacturing programme.
Though there has been rapid progress in RNA technologies, intracellular delivery remains a major bottleneck, slowing the translation of promising innovations into medicines.
Firms trying to develop these medicines often face fragmented testing approaches, uncertainty around how early delivery decisions translate into biological performance and limited access to specialist infrastructure.
The centre creates a national pathway for these organisations, aiming to generate evidence to advance these treatments toward clinical and commercial applications through a coordinated, data-driven approach that includes formulation design, functional characterisation, biodistribution, immunocompatibility and decision-making.
The centre's pilot phase involved working with commercial organisations and collaborative R&D partners on real projects and applications to develop and refine its capabilities.
CPI said that, through this early delivery activity, the partnership has supported more than ten commercial and collaborative projects, screened more than 4000 formulations, contributed to eight peer-reviewed publications and supported the development of a regulatory quick-start guide in collaboration with the MHRA.
Having now established and validated its capabilities through these early projects, the centre can now provide a coordinated service model designed to "support delivery optimisation, translational assessment and the generation of connected evidence needed for better-informed development decisions."
It will operate as a distributed national capability, providing a single point of entry for innovators developing drug delivery technologies and RNA-based medicines.
By combining infrastructure and expertise across the centre’s partners, organisations can access capabilities that would traditionally sit across multiple organisations, generating connected evidence and enabling better-informed decisions earlier in development to reduce risk and progress programmes towards clinical and commercial application.
Dr Juliana Haggerty, Head of the Intracellular Drug Delivery Centre at CPI, said: "RNA-based medicines have created enormous opportunities across healthcare, but intracellular delivery remains one of the biggest barriers to translating that potential into treatments that reach patients."
"Through the Intracellular Drug Delivery Centre, we’ve developed and validated an integrated capability designed around the evidence organisations need to make critical development decisions earlier and with greater confidence."
By making this capability more broadly accessible, we aim to help innovators reduce development risk, accelerate progress and strengthen the UK’s position in next-generation medicines.
Sarah Brockbank, Strategy Leader – Complex Medicines at Medicines Discovery Catapult, added: "RNA therapeutics are redefining what is possible in medicine, offering potential for previously untreatable diseases."
"While innovation in this field is advancing rapidly, realising the full potential of these next-generation medicines requires us to develop the analytical capabilities needed to support their development. Providing wider access to the UK's Intracellular Drug Delivery Centre is an important milestone in achieving this goal."
Medicines Discovery Catapult brings established, validated models to the partnership, helping innovators generate the decision-making data needed to progress confidently towards the clinic.
"Together with CPI and our academic partners, we will help accelerate the development of RNA therapeutics and other advanced medicines, enabling more promising medicines to reach patients faster."
