Flexible, agile, scalable and sustainable medicines manufacturing
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £5m for development and implementation of technologies for medicines development and manufacture.
Opportunity Details
When
Registration Opens
26/09/2023
Registration Closes
22/11/2023
Award
Your project’s total grant funding request must be between £200,000 and £2 million. This can cover up to 70% of costs depending on project type and business size.
Organisation
Innovate UK
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £5 million in innovation projects. The aim of this competition is to encourage the development and adoption of flexible, agile, scalable and sustainable technologies (FASST) for the development and manufacture of medicines.
These technologies are expected to support enhanced manufacturing processes, with significant and measurable improvements to resource efficiency, or productivity of pharmaceutical processes. Benefits should include reduced time-to-market for new products and increased patient access to medicines.
Your proposal must show how your project will improve the productivity, competitiveness and growth for at least one UK micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) involved in the project.
Your proposal must deliver the following benefits:
- drive economic recovery and levelling up by supporting job creation, skills development and inward investment in medicines manufacturing
- drive health security and patient benefit whilst demonstrating improved productivity and reduced time to market
- de-risk the use of transformative flexible, agile, scalable and sustainable technologies in medicine manufacturing
- address net zero and sustainability goals showing how flexible, agile, scalable and sustainable technologies can improve resource and energy efficiency
- support equality, diversity and inclusion via project initiatives and project outcomes
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To lead a project your organisation must:
- be a UK registered business of any size, a research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit or public sector organisation
- collaborate with other UK registered organisations
- be or involve at least one grant claiming micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
If the lead organisation is an RTO it must collaborate with 2 businesses, which includes one SME, and one business of any size. Academic institutions cannot lead an application.
To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
- business of any size
- academic institution
- charity
- not for profit
- public sector organisation
- research and technology organisation (RTO)
A business, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit or public sector organisation can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.
If a business, RTO, charity, not for profit or public sector organisation is not leading a project it can only collaborate on up to three applications.
An academic institution can collaborate on any number of applications.
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Your project must:
- have total grant funding request between £200,000 and £2 million
- last between 12 and 24 months
- start by 1 April 2024
- end by 31 March 2026
- carry out all of its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
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The aim of this competition is to encourage the development and adoption of flexible, agile, scalable and sustainable technologies (FASST) for the development and manufacture of medicines.
These technologies are expected to support enhanced manufacturing processes, with significant and measurable improvements to resource efficiency or productivity of pharmaceutical processes. Benefits should include reduced time-to-market for new products and increased patient access to medicines.
Your project must either:
- demonstrate an improvement in resource efficiency, for example, reduction in waste production, energy consumption, carbon emissions
or
- show productivity utilising a recognised metric, for example, process mass intensity, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) as a result of the innovation
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Technologies in scope for this competition include but are not limited to:
- laboratory automation and development lab of the future
- digital twins
- predictive and autonomous supply chain management including predictive yield optimisation and real time tracking and tracing
- process analytical technology (PAT) and real-time release testing (RTRT)
- continuous manufacturing and biomanufacturing
- modular manufacturing and biomanufacturing
- continuous processing and bioprocessing
- automated process and bioprocess development
- large scale manufacturing robots
- digital processes
- AI-informed decision support
- distributed manufacturing and biomanufacturing models
- sustainable platform processes, for example biocatalysis, bio-derived feedstocks
- data-driven manufacturing and biomanufacturing
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Your project must focus on one or more of the following:
- lowering manufacturing costs
- reducing environmental impact of medicines manufacturing
- increasing patient access to products
- increasing yield
- increasing productivity
- increasing speed of data processing
- improving efficiency and remove bottlenecks
- reducing time to market
- reducing development time
- supporting process monitoring controls
- gathering and effectively utilising information from across the supply chain
- commitment to skills and talent development
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Innovate UK will hold an online briefing event at 2:30pm on Friday 29th September: click here for the joining link.
If you want help to find a project partner, contact Innovate UK KTN’s Health team.