Deadline: 7-Jun-23
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is inviting applications for funding to revolutionise the development and manufacture of future medicines.
They will fund a diverse portfolio of projects that bring transformative ideas to solve bottlenecks across the pipeline, from discovery to deployment. Proposals must address the grand challenge of delivering an accelerated, sustainable pathway to future medicines.
They encourage interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary projects. You must consider manufacturability from the outset. You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for EPSRC funding.
Objectives
Proposals should address one or more of the following objectives:
- create a more efficient translational pathway for medicines manufacturing
- deliver new medicines more sustainably
- accelerate the time from discovery to deployment
- ensure manufacturability, including scale-up and the needs of users, is considered from the outset of the process of new medicines discovery
- create the engineering and physical science knowledge, skills and workforce to take forward future breakthroughs in the medicines pipelines
- be multidisciplinary programmes utilising expertise across disciplines that could cover multiple research areas in any parts of the pipeline from innovative chemistry to novel manufacturing techniques
Themes
- They are looking for proposals to incorporate one or more of the below themes into the wider application:
- new modalities:
- sustainable solutions to scale up production of new modalities
- technologies to consider scale up of new modalities at the outset of drug design
- discovery:
- techniques to improve understanding of drug screening to ensure higher success rates for scale up
- analytical capability:
- analytical techniques for new modalities to predict performance in the clinic, scale up or both
- new modalities:
- They expect environmental sustainability to be a consideration in all projects.
- Proposals are expected to have engaged with, or considered an engagement plan with non-academic partners, for example, industry and regulatory authorities to facilitate upstream or downstream adoption where appropriate.
- EPSRC will reject proposals that do not fall within the funding opportunity scope. Ideas must be within the majority remit of EPSRC.
Scope
- They are seeking high-quality proposals that will draw on novel multidisciplinary engineering and physical sciences to address key bottlenecks in the medicines manufacturing pipeline. From discovery to deployment, proposals will facilitate a revolution by delivering a step change in how future medicines are developed and manufactured.
- The new EPSRC strategy for health has identified specific priorities including: resilient manufacturing through improving UK capability in developing and manufacturing new medicines and interventions, and delivering these more rapidly and sustainably. This encompasses:
- research to accelerate the time taken from discovery to deployment of new interventions
- scale-up technologies that allow future medicines to be manufactured in an affordable way that meets safety and environmental requirements
- research to understand and address the manufacturing challenges for novel therapies from small molecules to cell or regenerative medicine therapies
- processes that will be capable of cost-effective scale-up to enable mass production of medicines, for example, to tackle epidemics. It could also include processes that will be capable of scale-down to produce personalised medicines, such as regenerative therapies using patients’ own cells
- This is one of two linked opportunities. There is a separate funding opportunity for smaller feasibility studies and translational projects. Together, the two funding opportunities will help us to support a diverse range of ideas and new collaborations.
- Vaccines manufacturing is outside the scope of this funding opportunity.
Funding Information
- They will fund research projects up to £2 million in this funding opportunity. Another opportunity linked to this funding opportunity which will fund smaller projects up to £150,000, including feasibility studies to test new ideas or translational projects to maximise the impact of prior research will follow the publication of this funding opportunity.
- The full economic cost of your project can be up to £2,000,000. EPSRC will fund 80% of the full economic cost.
- Start date: Grants may start from 1 April 2024.
Eligibility Criteria
- Standard EPSRC eligibility rules apply. Research grants are open to:
- UK higher education institutions
- research council institutes
- UK Research and Innovation-approved independent research organisations
- eligible public sector research establishments
- eligible research and technology organisations
- NHS bodies with research capacity
- You can apply if you are a resident in the UK and meet at least one of the conditions:
- are employed at the submitting research organisation at a level equivalent to lecturer or above
- hold a fixed-term contract that extends beyond the duration of the proposed project, and the host research organisation is prepared to give you all the support normal for a permanent employee
- hold an EPSRC, Royal Society or Royal Academy of Engineering fellowship aimed at later career stages
- hold fellowships under other schemes
- Holders of postdoctoral level fellowships are not eligible to apply for an EPSRC grant.
- If you are currently restricted under the repeatedly unsuccessful applicants policy, you may submit unlimited outlines. However, you will only be able to submit one full proposal as principal investigator or co-investigator during the 12-month restricted period.
For more information, visit (EPSRC).