Transforming medicines manufacturing - Grand Challenge

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be a research and technology organisation (RTO) or public sector organisation
• collaborate with at least two UK registered businesses of any size
• be or involve at least one grant claiming micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)

More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.

Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.

Project team

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

A research and technology organisation (RTO), public sector organisation can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications.

An academic can collaborate on any number of applications.

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request between £2 million and £4 million
• be led by a research and technology organisation (RTO), public sector organisation
• demonstrate co-investment of at least 100% of the total grant request
• last between 24 months and 60 months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• start by 1 April 2024
• end by 31 March 2026 (see below)

Duration of the project can be up to 60 months, but grant must be claimed against eligible costs incurred and defrayed by 31 March 2026.

Co-investment is critical to the project. Innovate UK will have the ability to reclaim grant costs if co-investment is not committed within the lifetime of the project.

The aim of this competition is to encourage the development and adoption of flexible, agile, scalable and sustainable technologies (FASST) across the supply chain for the development and manufacture of medicines.

This Grand Challenge will establish a consortium to develop technologies and are expected to support enhanced manufacturing processes, with significant and measurable improvements to the speed and efficiency of pharmaceutical processes across the supply chain. This should lead to shorter development timelines, reduced time-to-market for new products and increase patient access to medicines.

Your project must demonstrate collaborative R&D across supply chains.

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

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

Innovate UK will hold an online briefing on Monday 16th October at 11am: click here to register for a place.

If you would like help to find a project partner, contact Innovate UK KTN’s Medicines Manufacturing team.