Medicines Discovery Catapult works at the frontier of drug discovery. It is a national Life Sciences service, ensuring that every move counts for innovators as they carry out their research. Medicines Discovery Catapult’s approach to drug discovery drives game-changing breakthroughs and improves patients’ lives.
To find out how we can support your drug discovery project, speak to us.
Drug discovery is high-risk and there can be much at stake – technically, financially, and reputationally.
Innovators may:
For help navigating your drug discovery project, speak to us.
Medicines Discovery Catapult is a national Life Sciences service, de-risking investment and driving impact. When the stakes are this high, we help make sure the next move counts. Using our expertise, data, insights, and technology, we unlock data to validate new ideas and identify the fastest, safest route to accelerate commercial success.
We create momentum by mobilising the right people and partnerships. Where there is unmet patient need, we stimulate innovation through its National Programmes. This approach to drug discovery drives game-changing breakthroughs and improves patients’ lives.
To partner or collaborate with Medicines Discovery Catapult, please speak to us.
Medicines Discovery Catapult has supported 389 SMEs on their journey to commercial success and helped them generate over £1.8bn of R&D investment. Its support has helped partners move five new drugs to clinical trials.
Our exceptional people help make the next move count for innovators on the brink of discovery. Our teams have deep scientific expertise and access to the very best technology. When combined with the latest market insights and business intelligence, our support gives innovators the best chance of commercial success.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
Medicines Discovery Catapult is a national Life Sciences service, de-risking investment and driving impact. We unlock data to validate a new idea and build long-term success, giving innovators the support and momentum they need to get there. We ask the right questions at the right time, to make sure every move counts.
Much of our expertise lies in our own teams and technology, but we also have a network of funders, investors, academics, pharma and patient communities across the sector.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
Medicines Discovery Catapult creates long-term impact. We work closely with scientists from across the sector to set the most effective strategic roadmap for success. We create momentum through our unique blend of discovery expertise, technology, insights, and sector-leading partnerships.
Where there is unmet patient need, we stimulate innovation through our National Programmes. Our approach to drug discovery drives game-changing breakthroughs and improves patients’ lives.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
Drug discovery is hard, and the stakes are high. We minimise risk and delay. As a national Life Sciences service, we give innovators access to the country’s best experts equipped with industry-leading technology and commercial insights. By asking the right questions at the right time, we help entrepreneurial scientists validate their ideas and make sure the next move counts.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
Medicines Discovery Catapult exists to improve lives. Medicines Discovery Catapult works at the frontier of drug discovery, helping entrepreneurs make game-changing breakthroughs to solve challenging unmet patient needs. We help improve people’s lives, increase the impact of the Life Sciences sector, and improve the health of our society and economy.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
Medicines Discovery Catapult are headquartered at Alderley Park in Cheshire, which is the UK’s second-largest life sciences cluster. Our facility includes specialised laboratories for radiochemistry, mass spectrometry, and advanced imaging.
If you would like to use our facilities to aid in your research, then please speak to us with details of your requirements to see if we can help.
Medicines Discovery Catapult provides specialised support across all areas of drug discovery and also focuses on four key therapeutic areas:
Speak to us to find out how we can support your specialist project.
Medicines Discovery Catapult works with and connects the entire Life Sciences sector. This includes:
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
Medicines Discovery Catapult is a national Life Sciences service in the UK dedicated to driving game-changing breakthroughs in medicine to improve patient lives. As part of the Innovate UK Catapult network, it functions to de-risk new medicines discovery by providing access to advanced technologies, specialised skills, and deep industry knowledge.
To find out how we can support your drug discovery project, speak to us.
Our National Programmes have been created to tackle these most pressing global health challenges and include:
If you would like to discuss innovative research in relation to our National Programmes, please speak to us.
Medicines Discovery Catapult leads several large-scale national initiatives designed to address major global health challenges where the commercial market may be struggling. Current focus areas include:
If you would like to discuss innovative research in relation to major global health challenges, please speak to us.
National program, NPIP, is the National PET Imaging Network. This total-body PET imaging allows for the simultaneous scanning of all organs in the body, providing unprecedented data on drug distribution, kinetics, and multi-organ interaction in real-time.
If you are interested in finding out more about total-body PET technology, then please speak to the team at NPIP.
Medicines Discovery Catapult provides access to a wide range of advanced technology platforms, including:
If you would benefit from use of our platforms, then please get in touch.
Medicines Discovery Catapult aligns its services with the entire drug discovery pipeline, from target selection and hit identification, to pre-clinical models and preparation for clinical trials. We provide R&D consultancy to help partners to make their next move count, developing roadmaps for getting drugs to market.
Find out if we can aid you through the drug discovery process – speak to us.
Medicines Discovery Catapult excels in three core pillars of Drug Discovery:
To make your next move count, then speak to us.
Yes, Medicines Discovery Catapult provides R&D consultancy. Our work spans traditional small molecules, biologics (including oligonucleotide and antibody therapeutics), and nanoparticle delivery systems.
We understand how to get a drug to market and work with you to develop a plan to make your next move count. We apply scientific understanding to unmet patient needs, identifying the most effective way to develop new medicines.
For R&D consultancy, please head to the linked web page and complete the form within the page to see how we can help advance your drug discovery project.
Yes, Medicines Discovery Catapult’s Translational Medicine team supports early-phase clinical study design by developing bespoke biomarker solutions, validating diagnostic tools, and providing access to high-quality clinical samples.
For support with your clinical study, please speak to us.
Our exerts and state of the art facilities are equipped to de-risk drug development projects at every stage of the journey.
One such example, is by using human-relevant disease models (such as iPSCs and primary cells) and advanced biomarker strategies, can identify and mitigate potential failure points early in the development process.
For help de-risking your project, please speak to us.
To be considered as a collaborative partner on grant bids, please reach out as early as possible once a funding call is live. Please reach out as early as possible once a funding call is live. We typically cannot support bids submitted with fewer than three weeks’ notice.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
We do not offer standalone grant writing services, but when we partner on a bid, we contribute to content and review.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
No, Medicines Discovery Catapult does not provide direct financial grants. However, we help select partners secure funding by acting as a collaborative partner on grant bids, providing technical validation.
To be considered as a collaborative grant partner, please reach out as early as possible once a funding call is live. We typically cannot support bids submitted with fewer than three weeks’ notice.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
There are several ways to engage with us depending on your project’s needs:
Speak to us to find out how we can best help get your research off the ground.
Whether your project is academic or pre-commercial, we can help support you in driving it towards commercialisation. We can offer guidance on your future customers’ needs, honing your plans and your data package to maximise their coherence and credibility, helping you make your project more attractive to investors.
Partner with our experts to understand the commercial viability of your drug discovery project.
With our extensive discovery experience, we can advise on what is needed to progress your molecule and we can help you to develop and implement a strategy to generate this data and understanding.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
We can help you evaluate your lead molecule in cutting edge in vitro and in vivo human cell models to build confidence in your asset as you progress towards the clinic.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
We can deploy our suite of analytical technologies to build a platform of evidence connecting your drug, its biological target, and downstream effects. These assays can then be deployed to support project progression.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
We can use our advanced technologies to measure the distribution of your drug molecule or drug delivery technology in vivo to demonstrate that it reaches its target tissue, then delve deeper to measure the distribution of the drug molecule within the tissue and its downstream effects.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
We can help you identify and measure translatable biomarkers that can be applied to demonstrate that your drug is exhibiting its desired effect at each stage of your project journey and help to understand which patients could benefit from your drug.
We are committed to supporting the progression of new technologies and approaches that are relevant to drug discovery. Whether a novel method or a new technology, we can help you validate and benchmark your platform in a drug discovery environment and develop new applications that can grow your business.
Speak with our team today to explore how we can support your research.
We use predictive models and data-driven analytics to predict druggability from a raw dataset or a candidate list of targets, and then select the most likely successful therapeutic modality class for these. Thereby mitigating risks; saving time and money; streamlining decision-making; increasing the chances of success and getting your drug to market quicker.
Make your next move count – speak to us.
Our predictive models and data-driven analytics can go a long way to detailing the efficacy and safety of a new medicine, before a single test on animal or human takes place.
For help de-risking your project, please speak to us.
Finding an alternative use – or uses – for an existing medicine can be hugely beneficial. With its testing and safety compliance already in place, a drug can be sped to market at minimum cost. By cross-referencing a drug’s composition and effects with very large amounts of research data, new opportunities can present themselves.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug repurposing project.
People suffering from complex or multifaceted issues often benefit from combinations of drugs, which can work to increase efficacy, overcome resistance and reduce adverse reactions. Through the close analysis of extremely large amounts of data, we can find opportunities for your drug to work in harmony with others.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
Chemical space is vast, and only a fraction of it has been explored in terms of drug discovery. Through virtual screening and in-depth analysis of bioactivities, we can support in identifying potential lead compounds for you, at speed and with confidence.
Partner with our experts to accelerate your drug discovery project.
Many early-stage biotechs have great science but lack the industrial-grade data required by investors. Medicines Discovery Catapult helps “de-risk” these companies by validating their science using industry-standard assays and providing the robust data packages that venture capitalists and big pharma look for during due diligence.
Partner with us to de-risk your drug discovery project.
Medicines Discovery Catapult is an independent, not-for-profit company. We are part of the Innovate UK Catapult Network and receive core funding from Innovate UK (part of UK Research and Innovation), but we operate with a commercial mindset to serve the life sciences industry.
Partner with us to accelerate your drug discovery project.
Medicines Discovery Catapult employs high-resolution microscopy and phenotypic assays tailored to specific disease biology to evaluate how therapeutics interact with targets.
We use back-translation techniques, taking data from clinical samples to build and validate superior in vitro models.
Speak with our team today to explore how we can support your in vitro biology research.
We are committed to supporting the progression of new technologies and approaches that are relevant to drug discovery. Whether a novel method or a new technology, we can help you validate and benchmark your platform in a drug discovery environment and develop new applications that can grow your business.
Speak with our team today to explore how we can support your research.
This is a label-free technique that allows for the simultaneous acquisition of hundreds of molecules from a single tissue experiment.
It integrates drug biodistribution with biomarker imaging, showing exactly where a drug locates within a structure (e.g. distinguishing between grey and white matter in the brain).
Speak with our team today to explore how we can support your in vivo biology research.
Yes, Medicines Discovery Catapult has a dedicated radiochemistry capability with an established supply of various radioisotopes, including 225Ac, 177Lu, 89Zr, 68Ga, and 18F.
Services include the modification of proteins with bifunctional radiometal chelators and the radiolabelling of small molecules, peptides, and biologics.
Medicines Discovery Catapult also provides a Preclinical Radiotherapy Platform and expertise in evaluating the stability and biodistribution of radioligands.
Speak with our team today to explore how we can support your in vivo biology research.
The state-of-the-art suite includes Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Computed Tomography (CT), and High-Frequency Ultrasound (HFUS).
We also offer Bioluminescence and near-Infrared imaging (IVIS) for monitoring treatment response and tumour growth in real-time.
Speak with our team today to explore how we can support your in vivo biology research.
Medicines Discovery Catapult goes to extra lengths to ensure safety and is certified ISO 45001. The ISO 45001 standard is the world’s first international standard for occupational health and safety. Independently certified, it provides a framework to increase safety, reduce workplace risks and enhance health and wellbeing in the workplace.
Make your next move count. Speak to us to safely advance your drug discovery project.
Yes, Medicines Discovery Catapult can run developed and validated assays to Good Clinical Laboratory Practice (GCLP) standards.
This ensures that the data generated is robust enough to inform critical clinical decisions, such as dosing strategies and patient selection.
Medicines Discovery Catapult is also ISO 45001 certified. The ISO 45001 standard is the world’s first international standard for occupational health and safety. Independently certified, it provides a framework to increase safety, reduce workplace risks and enhance health and wellbeing in the workplace.
Need support in developing your drug for clinical trials? Speak to us to see how we can advance your drug discovery project.
Medicines Discovery Catapult offers an extensive range of multi-omic profiling, including Transcriptomics, Proteomics, Metabolomics, and Lipidomics.
We specialise in Spatial Biology to map target expression across various tumour types and identify specific cell types involved in disease progression.
Medicines Discovery Catapult develops bespoke biomarker strategies and assays, such as multiplexed circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) assays. For example, we have verified assays that can detect 14 different KRAS and BRAF mutations from liquid biopsies using droplet digital PCR (ddPCR), which is sensitive enough to detect single copies of a mutation.
See how we can help support you with your next drug discovery project.
Speak to us