This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Funding for cancer drug development
08/02/2005
The first project announcement by Intermediary
Technology Institute Life Sciences in Scotland will see
£3.7 million go towards discovering new cancer
therapies.
ITI Life Sciences has been given £150 million from the
Executive to invest over 10 years with the aim of
bridging the funding gap between publicly funded early
stage research and privately backed commercial
development.
The three-year research and development project
announced today is collaboration between Edinburgh
Instruments Ltd, Hannah InterActions Ltd and CSS-Albachem
Ltd.
Enterprise Minister Jim Wallace said:
"Today's project announcement is highly significant. Not
only does it showcase an excellent collaborative project
between three Scottish corporate partners, but it
demonstrates real progress by ITI Life Sciences.
"Scotland is well placed to be globally significant in
the development of the Life Sciences sector and today's
programme gives a clear indication of the impact we hope to
make in a globally competitive market.
"When I visited China I heard first hand recognition of
our global reputation in the life sciences sector. Our
ambition to deliver a Smart Successful Scotland will be
realised through excellence in scientific innovation, today
sees this happening in a meaningful way.
"Scotland's life sciences sector is already a success
story - from our academic research excellence to the
exciting work being taken forward by our industry, in an
incredibly wide range of sectors.
The potential health benefits to our people, and others
around the world, are truly breathtaking. I believe the
sector can make a crucial contribution to the Executive's
top priority of ensuring economic growth continues.
I look forward to more announcements like todays - which
demonstrate our commitment to supporting the industry and
the Scottish economy as a whole."
Edinburgh Instruments (EI) was established
in 1971 as one of the first spin-out companies of the
Scottish University base. Based on the science of Professor
Desmond Smith FRS, and the work of the physics department
of Heriot Watt University, EI has positioned itself in the
specialist optoelectronics instrumentation sector and has
won a number of awards, including the DTI EPIC prize, for
Education in Partnership with Industry and Commerce. EI has
sold products throughout the world, with exports accounting
for 80 per cent of its sales and a customer base that
includes many multinationals as well as highly focused
academic research facilities. In more recent years EI has
established a reputation in the field of lifetime
fluorescence, with the Fluorescence Lifetime Spectrometer
(FLS920) being the current lead product.
Hannah InterActions Ltd (HIA), through its
Hannah Cell Science division, provides cell-based products
and cell-biological analysis to clients in the
pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. The company
has extensive technical expertise applicable to cell
population analysis, and specialises in the development of
advanced cell-based assays for use in candidate drug
validation and biomedical research. Company services are
underpinned by research and development focused on aspects
of breast cancer and regenerative medicine. Breast cancer
research focuses on potential tumour suppressor molecules,
and the manipulation of mammary cell-death control. R&D
in regenerative medicine includes biomaterials testing for
tissue reconstruction. The cell culture technology
underpinning Hannah Cell Science also has application in
the study of lifestyle-related disease, with particular
focus on neonatal development and functional foods. HIA is
a partner company of the Hannah Research Institute.
CSS-Albachem is a biotechnology company
based near Edinburgh, founded on the science of Professor
Robert Ramage FRS, a world expert in the chemical synthesis
and purification of peptides and proteins. The company is a
leading player in the provision of complex and challenging
peptides and proteins to the pharmaceutical and
biotechnology industries for application in basic research,
drug discovery, diagnostics and therapeutics. The
technologies developed by CSS-Albachem, coupled with their
considerable expertise in the peptide and protein science
fields, enables the benefits of chemical synthesis to be
realized in larger peptide systems (150-200 amino acids).
This opens up exciting opportunities in the biological and
medicinal sciences and addresses the global requirements
for ever more advanced and sophisticated polypeptides.
CSS-Albachem is part of the Almac Sciences group and was
established in 2004, when CSS acquired a controlling
interest in Albachem.