Industry, Academia Join For U.K. Drug Development Fund

AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, and three U.K. universities—Imperial College London, University of Cambridge, and University College London (UCL)—are combining to create an almost $60 million investment fund for drug development.

The program, the Apollo Therapeutics Fund, aims to accelerate the translation of academic science into medicines. The partners plan to develop drugs for all therapy areas using systems including small molecules, peptides, proteins, antibodies, and cell and gene therapies.

The industrial partners will contribute close to $15 million apiece to the fund over six years. The university partners will each contribute a further $5 million. It is the first time global drug companies and major universities have joined for such a fund, the partners say.

“The fund will add to a growing momentum behind life sciences investment in Britain,” says Steve Bates, CEO of the UK BioIndustry Association, a trade group. “This kind of early-stage investment is crucial and, if successful, I hope could broaden or lead to similar initiatives with other universities.”

Apollo will hire ex-industry scientists to create a drug discovery team that will work with the universities to identify and shape projects. Preclinical research will be advanced to a stage at which it can either be taken forward by one of the industrial partners following an internal bidding process or out-licensed.

For projects that become a commercial success, the originating university and its technology transfer office will receive a percentage of sales or out-licensing fees. The remainder of the income will be divided among the other Apollo partners.

Apollo will be based at Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst, an open innovation research center in England operated jointly by GSK, the Wellcome Trust, and the U.K. government. Ian Tomlinson, a former GSK research executive, has been appointed chairman of Apollo. Representatives from the six partners will be involved in all investment decisions.

By combining funding for promising early-stage therapeutics from the universities with industry expertise, Apollo aims to cut costs and the risk of project failure. The formation of the fund comes just days after UCL announced the launch of a $70 million fund to support academics at the university whose research has commercial potential.