Accelerating drug discovery at Oxford – a new public-private partnership

Accelerating drug discovery at Oxford – a new public-private partnership

Lab282 provides a £13m fund, open now to biomedical researchers at Oxford, and an expert in residence in the University to achieve proof of concept for new therapies, helping to translate Oxford’s world class basic research into focused drug discovery programmes.

It is a unique public-private partnership between the University of Oxford, Oxford University Innovation Ltd, (the university’s research commercialisation company), Oxford Sciences Innovation plc, (the world’s largest IP investment company dedicated to a single university), and Evotec AG (a drug discovery organisation with a track record of innovative academic partnerships).

New projects will be sourced across any therapeutic area and for any therapeutic modality exclusively from Oxford University researchers via OUI. Funding will come from OSI, and Evotec will contribute its drug discovery expertise and platforms to select projects and develop them.

© John CairnsLab282 will provide expertise in the form of Thomas Hanke, an Expert in Residence, and funding through small scale primer awards up to £25K, with awards of up to £250K (and in exceptional circumstances more) to help achieve full proof of concept.  Commercialisation of Lab282 results will be via the creation of new spin out companies. With OSI’s support and a world-class biocluster, Oxford is extremely well placed to seed and grow such companies.

Professor Matthew Wood, Associate Head of Medical Sciences Division (Research) said: “Lab282 represents an important innovation for Oxford in maximising the impact of public funding in medical sciences and I encourage our PIs and post-docs to take advantage of this new initiative.”

More details can be found on lab282.org and the press release announcing this initiative can be found here. 

Contact Thomas Hanke, Expert in Residence on +44 7791 107706 or email thomas.hanke@lab282.org.