University of Leeds researchers are part of the £20.4m Advanced Digital Design of Pharmaceutical Therapeutics (ADDoPT) programme introducing digital design processes to the pharmaceutical industry
ADDoPT is a four-year collaboration, between the Government, industry and universities, which is expected to reduce the development time and cost of innovative medicines and improve the competitiveness of the UK’s pharmaceuticals sector, according to the University of Leeds.
Partners include Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Kevin Roberts, brotherton professor of chemical engineering at the University of Leeds, who will lead the Leeds team, said: “The days of the blockbuster drug are numbered. Many medicines that are coming through are more targeted and we need a streamlined development process to get them to market.
“Instead of doing a lot of very expensive trial and error in the lab and in manufacturing design, ADDoPT will be developing the use of computer modelling and design tools to help plan the design and manufacturing process from raw materials through formulation, manufacturing and quality testing.
“The idea is to identify and eliminate non-viable drugs as early as possible in the process and concentrate time and resources on the right things.”
Alison Clough, acting chief executive of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), said: “We welcome the Government’s commitment to continuing to develop the UK’s life sciences sector.
“This project will help to put the UK in a position to make innovative medicines available to UK patients more quickly by futureproofing our advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing sector.
“By reducing the risks associated with the manufacture of medicines we can provide the UK with a competitive advantage in a globally significant sector.”
The University of Leeds, University of Cambridge, the Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Continuous Manufacturing and Crystallisation (CMAC) at the University of Strathclyde, the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre and the STFC Hartree Centre are the leading academic contributors.
The project is coordinated by Process Systems Enterprise, a supplier of advanced process modelling technology and is part funded under the Government’s Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative.
Project lead, Sean Bermingham of Process Systems Enterprise, said: “By building on UK excellence in process modelling, optimisation and control, we can give UK pharmaceutical development and manufacturing a genuine competitive advantage in this globally significant sector.”