From invention to application: transforming the best UK science into better treatments for patients
Professor Chris Molloy, CEO of Medicines Discovery Catapult
Medicines Discovery Catapult is driving national productivity in biotech and improving patients’ lives. Purposeful collaborations and risk-taking on behalf of the sector are vital, says CEO Professor Chris Molloy
From state-of-the-art medical imaging technologies to the development of new dementia treatments, Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) is driving innovation and helping to turn invention into commercial value and patient impact.
Launched in 2016, MDC is an established national life sciences service and is part of the Innovate UK Catapult Network.
“Catapults are the translational gearboxes for the nation, transferring the UK’s intellectual horsepower to where the rubber hits the road in applications, products and services,” says Professor Chris Molloy, MDC’s Chief Executive Officer. “Like any gearbox, it is a complex, industry-class, robust machine that manages the movement from invention to application.”
MDC is headquartered at Alderley Park in Cheshire. It employs 150 scientists and sector experts and has worked with almost 300 R&D partners, from big pharma to start-ups, service companies to health systems. It provides them with extensive expertise in medicines discovery, access to innovative technologies and an international network of R&D providers.
MDC has helped UK companies access more than £1.34bn of private R&D investment and supported them in taking new medicines and technologies to market faster. It also runs national R&D platforms and was a critical player in the UK’s Covid-19 response.
“Everything we do at MDC is about reshaping drug R&D for patient benefit. Some of it is immediate, some longer term. We do this in three ways: de-risking new productive technologies for our sector, de-risking new and emerging companies (to make them ‘Fit-to-Fund’ and ‘Fit-to-Grow’), and running purposeful, patient-centred R&D collaborations that are both national and multinational,” says Professor Molloy.
Purposeful collaboration is key to MDC’s work. A 2024 report published by MDC in partnership with the UK BioIndustry Association and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry highlighted the importance of a ‘round table’ of academia, SMEs, large pharmaceutical organisations, CROs (contract research organisations), investors and funders working together “to progress science and deliver patient benefit”.
“For the UK to maintain its status as a global superpower in life sciences in an increasingly competitive world, the ecosystem must drive UK-wide, active collaboration, coordination and targeted funding,” said the report, entitled The State of the Discovery Nation: Fostering a Dynamic, Sustainable Medicines Discovery Sector.
“Our sector has endured a dark winter of venture financing, and whilst the sun may be up above the horizon now, we have plenty to do,” says Professor Molloy.
“There are awesome challenges in front of every biotech company, which have an average of only five people. These hurdles include: its science, access to talent, clinical trials and financing, complex regulatory processes and market adoption. It is our job as a Catapult to do everything we can to make those barriers as low as they should be. We support companies to understand and address their challenges and to be investible.”
He is keen to highlight the UK financial sector’s role in funding entrepreneurial scientists and companies.
“By making more companies 'Fit-To-Fund', we will drive more investment in the sector. Put simply, good money follows good science with a good plan and good people who can make it happen. We help them do that today. If we can help the hundreds more five-person biotechs around the UK who are starting off on their journeys to reach the point where they’re ready for growth, then that growth money will flow.”
Strategic partnerships with government are vital too, particularly in the areas of business and trade, both nationally and internationally. Like other Catapults, MDC is part-funded by Innovate UK and UKRI (UK Research and Innovation). “The support we get from them is key,” says Professor Molloy. “It is welcomed and valued, enabling us to take the necessary risks on behalf of a commercial sector which cannot, driving their productivity and national competitiveness.”
MDC has formed strong relationships with R&D partners around the world, sharing skills, resources and assets with collaborating nations. For example, the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) joined the Australia-Canada-Singapore-Switzerland Consortium (known as Access) in 2020, and Professor Molloy believes that it is “a great example of where countries with like minds, shared values and shared objectives can combine to help maximise the speed at which new inventions can become applications, products and services for the benefit of people. Our global programmes build on these foundations for the benefit of biotech.”
MDC is currently driving high-impact, patient-centred and collaborative drug discovery programmes with stakeholders across the sector. These purposeful national and international programmes address areas where industry has traditionally found it hard to collaborate, to team up on the problem and make joint breakthroughs that unlock unmet patient needs.
They range from PACE (Pathways to Antimicrobial Clinical Efficacy), a £30m initiative to tackle the growing challenge of antimicrobial resistance by growing a pipeline of high-quality antimicrobial drugs, to the Psychiatry Consortium, a collaboration of medical research charities, pharmaceutical companies and CROs focused on identifying and validating new drugs to address the therapeutic needs of people living with mental health conditions.
Others include the CF AMR Syndicate, a cross-sector initiative working on new treatments for people with cystic fibrosis, the Intracellular Drug Delivery Centre, a national consortium to develop new drug delivery technologies and support promising RNA vaccines and therapeutics, and the National PET Imaging Platform, which is creating a nationwide network of total-body PET scanners.
Meanwhile, MDC is also helping the Office for Life Sciences to shape and launch the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals Programme, named after the late EastEnders actress, which brings global industry, NHS and academia together to accelerate the development and adoption of new dementia treatments.
“Catapults like ours play a key role in helping our SMEs, technologists, and academics understand what the demand signal is and support them in focusing their efforts on the things most likely to be applied,” says Professor Molloy.
“Demand signalling is important because innovators and inventors do not have endless time – and in this funding environment, they certainly do not have endless resources. Our national programmes and links to the UK’s excellent Medical Research Charity community allow us to help technologists identify that demand signal. Rather than saying, ‘Here is a great technology. What could it do?’, we ask ‘what is the real patient or productivity problem you’re trying to solve?’”
This is exemplified by the application of AI, which is playing an increasingly important role in reshaping drug R&D.
“The UK has an exceptional opportunity to train the best AI systems in the world. Using the data and our understanding of application space for AI, the UK can be the world’s leading AI university,” says Professor Molloy. “There is an opportunity to be the place where the very best and brightest AI systems in the world come to learn, and as a nation and a bioeconomy, we can benefit financially from that. With our world-class tradition and brand of education, we should set ourselves that ambition.”
Professor Molloy firmly believes that the life sciences sector, supported by focused, patient-centred R&D collaborations nationally and internationally, has an important strategic role to play in the UK, both in improving our health and boosting the economy.
“We can be proud of inventing, but I think we should be even more pleased and ambitious about the application of those inventions, just as we did during the first Industrial Revolution,” he says. “We are working in a strategically vital sector of our economy – the life sciences – which is wonderfully exemplified by what you see if you take the word ‘sciences’ out. That is our purpose.”
