The University of Cambridge has joined forces with three global pharmaceutical companies and two world-leading Universities, Imperial College London and University College London, with a combined £40 million to create the Apollo Therapeutics Fund. This new joint venture will support the translation of ground-breaking academic science from within these universities into innovative new medicines for a broad range of diseases.

The aim of Apollo is to advance academic pre-clinical research to a stage at which it can either be taken forward by one of the industry partners following an internal bidding process or be out-licensed. The three industry partners will also provide R&D expertise and additional resources to assist with the commercial evaluation and development of projects.

Iain Thomas (Head of Life Sciences at Cambridge Enterprise) says “Efficiently bringing together drug discovery expertise, potential customers, funding and project management, along with rapid decision making and execution through the Apollo Therapeutics Fund is a unique and extraordinarily exciting and valuable proposition for any academic or company that wants to see early stage ground breaking therapeutic technology progress to the clinic for patient benefit and economic return.”

Read more on www.cam.ac.uk