Research & development

Ahead of the UK’s Spring Budget, the UK BioIndustry Association (BIA) is calling on the Treasury to provide additional support through the R&D tax relief scheme to R&D intensive SMEs. These companies are the most at risk from the R&D tax relief rate cut announced at the Autumn Statement, due to their high R&D investment […]

The new Liverpool Clinical Research Facility (CRF) unit has opened at the new Royal Liverpool University Hospital thanks to £5.3m ($6.4m) funding from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).   The CRF will explore new treatments and vaccines for a range of diseases prevalent in Liverpool’s communities. This includes research into cancer and heart […]

Recent analysis has shown that more than 213,000 women are working in research and development (R&D) in the UK – more than anywhere else in the world.  UK employers have hired 67,645 more female researchers in the last decade, yet the UK ratio of women working in R&D compared to men is almost unchanged at […]

Torx Software and CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, have revealed that they will collbaorate to connect CAS SciFinder users through the Torx platform to streamline workflows for discovery chemistry.   CAS SciFinder is designed to provide solutions to challenges encountered in scientific research and discovery, across multiple stages of research and development, including […]

PrecisionLife and Ono Pharmaceutical have agreed a multi-target discovery and validation partnership.   The R&D collaboration will leverage PrecisionLife’s combinatorial analytics-generated insights to identify novel therapeutic targets and patient stratification biomarkers in central nervous system (CNS) disorders for development by Ono.  PrecisionLife analyses multi-modal datasets including genomic, clinical, and epidemiological data to accurately stratify patients and […]

Benchling has launched its first full set of capabilities for designing, modeling, and studying both natural and chemically modified RNA in a single solution. As the biopharmaceutical industry increases its focus on developing RNA therapeutics, the new RNA solution could help R&D organisations accelerate the delivery of drug candidates. Following the successful deployment of RNA […]

The Pistoia Alliance will be holding a free virtual conference which will include a series of  discussions with top pharma R&D leaders on the big issues facing our industry. Collaborative R&D in Action, April 20-21 & 23, provides a platform for R&D stakeholders to collaborate, learn and network across the life science and healthcare ecosystem. […]

Transforming R&D: Digital innovation in the pharmaceuticals and chemicals industries, a new report by MIT Technology Review Insights, explores how leading pharmaceuticals and chemicals companies are using artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and other digital technologies to transform scientific research and enhance R&D performance. The report, produced in association with PerkinElmer Informatics, is based on in-depth […]

A new approach to treating one of the leading causes of blindness among patients with diabetes is being tested in clinical trials which begin this month. The trial involves 48 patient volunteers with diabetic macular oedema (DMO), a disease where blood vessels leak fluid into the retina. It is the most common cause of vision […]

Microbiome-based evidence is set to drive understanding of how drugs interact with human ‘host’ environments, helping devise more targeted treatments and create business opportunities, reports Anthony Finbow, CEO of Eagle Genomics. The microbiology of the drug recipient impacts their immune response, allergic responses and more. Increasingly, life sciences R&D is taking into account the human […]

ELRIG recognises and celebrates Early Career Professionals (ECPs) that make a clear impact on the wider scientific community. This may be achieved in a variety of ways: Through delivery of impactful science, contributing to early, pre-clinical drug discovery by science or technology development work via leadership or facilitation of collaborations in the drug-discovery space, or through […]

R&D spending in the UK pharmaceutical sector has jumped 6.9% annually to an eight-year high, analysis of the latest ONS data by R&D tax relief specialist Catax shows. Total pharmaceutical industry spending on R&D rose to £4.8bn last year, an increase of £306m from the £4.5bn recorded a year earlier1. It was the largest real-terms […]

COVID-19 has shown the pace of innovation that is possible to develop vaccines and therapeutics. Matt Jones, Lead Data Scientist Strategist, Tessella explains how to set up R&D and data science teams to keep that going. The drive to develop new therapeutics and vaccines for COVID-19 saw researchers move at unprecedented speeds. Years became months, […]