The University of Oxford and Apollo Therapeutics, a portfolio biopharmaceutical company, announce the signing of a drug discovery and development collaboration aimed at translating breakthroughs made by biomedical researchers at Oxford.
Under the agreement, Apollo will identify and assess novel, validated therapeutic targets from Oxford's researchers for their potential to become important new medicines. Whilst Oxford's research teams will gain access to therapeutic development expertise and programme funding from Apollo. This will provide more access to clinical trials for patients and deliver faster routes to market for new medicines arising from Oxford's researchers.
The collaboration is driven by the quality of science and the burgeoning innovation environment at Oxford that has elicited a critical mass of early drug development translational research programmes. Apollo's drug discovery experts will look for the potential to transform the standard of care globally by supporting the development of new medicines across areas such as oncology and immunological and inflammatory disorders.
Science and Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology, said: 'We want to harness life sciences to transform the UK's healthcare and drive economic growth. Together, Apollo and Oxford University could deliver new medicines to help us tackle cancer, autoimmune disease, and more, improving and saving thousands of lives.
'The life sciences sector is open for business under this Government. We know that the best and boldest breakthroughs happen when industry and academia join forces, backed by government, and this partnership between Apollo and Oxford is proof of exactly what can be unlocked, when we open the doors to collaboration.'
Professor Chas Bountra, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Innovation at the University of Oxford, said: 'My amazing colleagues at Oxford have numerous cutting-edge research programmes for producing novel therapeutics for patients. Apollo Therapeutics has assembled a world leading team of drug discovery and development experts. Together we are going to transform the lives of millions of patients. I am immensely excited about this collaboration.'
This latest collaboration, Apollo's sixth agreement with a university or academic research centre, will bring the in-house expertise and resources of Apollo to Oxford's world class researchers from across the university. It will further bolster Apollo's scalable R&D platform for the evergreen discovery and development of new medicines.
Dr Richard Mason, Chief Executive Officer of Apollo Therapeutics, said: 'At Apollo Therapeutics we are ambitious in our mission to translate important new research discoveries into valuable new drugs. We are therefore delighted to be collaborating with the University of Oxford, a university that is consistently at the top of global rankings for scientific research and innovation. We are now working together with six of the world's top universities and research centres to transform the standard of care in major commercial markets based on breakthroughs in biology and basic medical research made by scientists at these institutions.'
The University of Oxford joins Apollo's other five world-class research institutions: the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, University College London, King's College London and the Institute of Cancer Research.
Dr Mairi Gibbs, CEO of Oxford University Innovation, said: 'We're keen to provide our academic researchers with multiple avenues to realise the full potential of their cutting-edge research as quickly as possible. If we boost the funding and expertise provided to very early phase drug development programmes this will hasten their progress towards becoming medicines with the potential to licence to industry or become spinout companies. With the support of the research commercialisation team at Oxford University Innovation and our investment partners, we want to speed up the development of more life-saving medicines to help patients most in need.'
