LAB282 celebrates a year of impact in Oxford
11th December 2017
The £13m drug discovery partnership between Oxford University, Oxford Sciences Innovation and Evotec supported 12 new projects in first year of operation.
LAB282, the £13m drug discovery partnership between Oxford University, Oxford Sciences Innovation and Evotec, is celebrating its first year of operation after successfully accelerating 12 drug discovery and development projects at the University.
In total, the partnership has provided 14 awards, both small and large scale.
In its fourth and latest round of awards, LAB282 backed the following Oxford projects:
- Validation of novel targets for myelofibrosis, a severe bone marrow disorder.
- Development of glucosidase II interface inhibitors; towards a novel class of broad-spectrum antivirals.
- Discovery of potent inhibitors to DarG antitoxins as a first-in-class anti-microbial concept.
- Advancing the development of evasins, a novel class of chemokine-trap to treat inflammatory disorders.
The LAB282 approach is an innovative approach to combining critical translational funding and focused expertise for early stage projects that have demonstrated commercial promise and can be accelerated towards the market. Started in Oxford, the LAB282 model has now been exported to Canada in a partnership between Evotec and Mars Innovation, and Evotec plans to unveil similar partnerships in the coming months.
A highly experienced Expert-in-Residence from Evotec works closely with Oxford academics to assess life sciences projects for their commercial potential. Once selected, Evotec continues to work closely with researchers to develop their ideas, providing essential technological validation, while leveraging the resources of Oxford Sciences Innovation, the £600m university venture fund manager for the University.
Thomas Hanke, Expert-in-Residence at Evotec, said:
“The first year of LAB282 has been a smooth integration into the Oxford ecosystem, generating an unprecedented number of projects compared to other virtual life sciences accelerators. The success to date speaks both to the quality of Oxford research and the Oxford/Evotec partnership.”
Adam Stoten, Chief Operating Officer at Oxford University Innovation, added:
“We’ve seen an explosion of innovative ideas and companies from the University in the past couple of years. The success so far of LAB282 mirrors the progress made within the wider Oxford tech cluster, and should provide a pipeline of new, commercially validated therapeutic candidates to ensure that the Oxford Boom continues for many years to come.”
Andrew McLean, Principal at Oxford Sciences Innovation, added:
“LAB282’s ability to find and scale ideas in the University underlines what can be accomplished by bringing together the technical expertise of Evotec, the scientific strength of the University, and the resources of the world’s largest university fund aimed at a single institution. We expect that many of the projects will evolve into companies that will ensure that revolutionary science is translated to medicines that treat human disease.”
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