The Department of Pharmacology provides strong support in translating research findings for wider impact:
- A range of collaborations with Industry
- Creation of spin-out companies
- Training for students and other researchers to develop their skills and understanding related to intellectual property, the pharmaceutical industry, biotech and start-ups.
- Engagement with the thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem of Cambridge.
These activities are supported by the Department’s Translational Champion, Professor Mark Howarth, who is keen to answer any enquiries in these areas.
Industrial collaborations
The Department engages with a wide range of local and international companies, through multiple routes such as sponsored PhD studentships, sponsored postdoctoral fellowships, consultancies and visiting scientists. These interactions are promoted through long-standing agreements, such as the AstraZeneca PhD studentship scheme, the numerous companies connecting to the University through the Milner Therapeutics Consortium, and spontaneous interactions in the biotech-dense environment. As well as research collaborations, there is also an exchange of wisdom through industrial scientists providing lectures in the Part II Pharmacology course and presentations in the Department’s seminar series (e.g. Novo Nordisk, Astex, Bicycle Therapeutics), as well as Department group leaders presenting seminars at company headquarters.
Spin-out companies
Cambridge is one of the leading centres in the world for the creation of spin-out companies.
Some of the companies in the biotech cluster, surrounding the Department of Pharmacology in Cambridge’s centre.
We benefit from Cambridge University’s Judge Business School being next door to our Department. Potential founders receive encouragement from the Department and the University’s tech transfer organisation, Cambridge Enterprise, in patent filing, team creation and refining their business models. There are a wide range of start-up accelerator programmes and incubators (e.g. FOUNDERS, Babraham, O2H) to assist in the earliest stages of fund-raising through to the first major investments.
In recent times, Gastrobody Therapeutics was spun out from the Department, based on a platform for plant-derived orally-active antibody mimetics, for therapy of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Gastrobody Therapeutics was founded by Ana Rossi, Mark Howarth and Yasunori Watanabe, receiving initial internal support from the Technology Investment Fund before going on to receive Research Council investment.
Gastrobody Therapeutics presenting their technology at the Founders 2.0 Investor Day in London.
The company Arcneos was also recently founded based on work by the group of Dr. Florian Merkle. Arcneos builds on the development of methods to generate appetite-regulatory neurons from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The Merkle group demonstrated that these cells respond to many of the same hormones and drugs as their counterparts in the brain, providing a powerful platform to identify new targets and explore leads towards more effective and better-tolerated anti-obesity therapy.
Hypothalamic neurons have been derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells. Neuronal processes are shown in cyan and the appetite-regulatory peptide alpha-MSH in purple, imaged by Solomon Shepherd in Florian Merkle’s group.
Further early-stage translational work includes the group of Professor Walid Khaled, working towards treatment at the earliest stage of cancer, and Professor Catherine Wilson towards mRNA therapy for muscle regeneration following heart attack.
Training for Department members
The Department runs a Next Pharma Phenomenon event, where MPhil and PhD students and postdoctoral researchers learn about the fundamentals of patenting and fund-raising, before forming teams to pitch their own start-up ideas.
The Department takes a leading role in the Cambridge Academy of Therapeutic Sciences (CATS), an Interdisciplinary Research Centre facilitating development of new therapeutics and supporting the training of the next generation of world-leading researchers.
Department members are also encouraged to take advantage of the huge range of activities on-going around Cambridge, where they can learn about important opportunities and connect with other academics, biotech companies, investors and other funders. These include:
including the AI club for Biomedicine
Engineering Biology Interdisciplinary Research Centre
Cambridge New Therapeutic Forum
Bio-spark providing opportunities to sample different company environments, and mentorship that may lead to the formation of companies.
Co-founder matching accelerators for people who are interested to start a company but don’t necessarily have a particular idea or cofounder to start the journey.
EnterpriseTECH course from the Judge Business School on navigating the journey from technology to market
Access to industry experts with experience in drug discovery, diagnostics, devices or regulation.