The MRC promotes partnership between UK academia and industry

John Savill

Medical Research Council

• Encourage & support high-quality research

with the aim of improving human health.

• Produce skilled researchers.

• Advance and disseminate knowledge and

technology to improve the quality of life

and economic competitiveness in the UK

and worldwide.

• Promote dialogue with the public about

medical research.

MRC mission

• Encourage &support high-quality research

with the aim of improving human health.

• Produce skilled researchers.

• Advance and disseminate knowledge and

technology to improve the quality of life and

economic competitiveness in the UK and

worldwide.

• Promote dialogue with the public about

medical research.

• Work with industry to drive economic

development

MRC mission

Research Changes Lives 2014-2019

• Continues the MRC’s strategic direction.

• Builds on our strengths and new scientific opportunities to secure impact from MRC research.

• Strategic intent: to support excellent discovery science and partnerships to promote translation to accelerate the pace of improvements in health and wealth.

• RCL 2014–2019 will:

• Provide the framework for Spending Review bids

• Facilitate active partnerships

• Signal pathways for engagement

• Communicate the MRC vision

The Cooksey report

• The 2006 Cooksey report identified gaps in the translation of health research into healthcare improvement.

• The 2007 settlement for the MRC included an additional £132m spend targeted towards translational research over a three-year period.

• We established a range of specific translational research funding streams.

Public funding for health research leverages investment from the international pharmaceutical sector

• £8.1bn was spent on health research by UK organisations in 2009/10

• £2.4bn public funding helped leverage £1.1bn charity funding, £4.4bn private sector funding (global pharmaceutical industry contribution to UK R&D), and £0.2bn additional funding from overseas

UK Health

Departments

15%

MRC and

other

Research

Councils

9%

UK Funding

Councils

6%

Charity

14%

Overseas

funding

2%

Pharmacuetic

al research

and

development

54%

Sector £ billions

UK Health Departments 1.2

MRC and other Research Councils 0.7

UK Funding Councils 0.5

Charity 1.1

Overseas funding (e.g. from EU) 0.2

Pharmaceutical industry research and development 4.4

Data from estimated UK 2009/10 expenditure on health research http://www.ukcrc.org/index.aspx?o=3643

UK Health R&D

Medical research attracts investment to the UK

2011 MRC and AstraZeneca agree an entirely novel partnership to fund academic research on proprietary AZ compounds

March 2013 AstraZeneca move 2,000 jobs from Cheshire to Cambridge and invests £330m in the new facility

March 2012 GSK invest £500m and secure 1000 jobs in pharmaceutical manufacturing in the UK

December 2013 GSK invest a further £200m in manufacturing capacity in the UK

2008 Pfizer set up a new $100m programme in regenerative medicine, part of which is collaborative with MRC-funded researchers at UCL

March 2013 Johnson & Johnson announces Opening of London Innovation Centre, one of four such centres worldwide and the only one in Europe

“Partnering across government, academia and industry is a critical way to spur additional scientific innovation” Menelas Pangalos, EVP, Innovative Medicines & Early Development, AstraZeneca

“..allow us to tap into important bioscience hotspots” Pascal Soirot CEO AstraZeneca

“…medicines of the future will not only be discovered, but can also continue to be made here in Britain” Andrew Witty CEO GSK

“..regards partnership in the UK, the quality of the science is fantastic” Ruth McKernan, Neusentis (Pfizer regenerative medicine) CEO

“I’m delighted to be able to take this project on to the next stage thanks to this collaboration. Without MRC support, we would not be where we are today” Pete Coffey UCL

“Our on-the-ground proximity to regional scientists and entrepreneurs will allow us to build the strong personal relationships that underlie the most successful collaborations and investment deals,” Patrick Verheyen, head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation centre in London

A large proportion of UK R&D expenditure is contributed by the pharmaceutical sector

Pharmaceutica

ls28%

Computer

programming and

information service

activities10%

Motor vehicles

and parts9%

Aerospace

8%

Telecommunic

ations6%

Machinery and

equipment6%

All other

product groups33%

• 2011 Business Expenditure on R&D (BERD) across ALL sectors in the UK was £17.4bn

• 28% of this (£4.9bn) was pharmaceutical sector R&D

UK Business R&D

Employment in the pharmaceutical sector is crucial to the UK economy

Gross Value Added (GVA) per employee for Medium and High Technology Manufacturing industries (£k)

• Pharmaceutical manufacturing jobs generate at least twice the GVA of other industries.

• UK pharmaceutical sector employs 70,000 people and generates a turnover of £30bn.

• The related medical technology and medical biotechnology sectors employ 96,000 people with an annual turnover of around £20bn

201.6

93.573.2 68.4 63.5 58.4 48.9

0.0

50.0

100.0

150.0

200.0

250.0

UK academic research attracts significant funding from outside the UK

• MRC funded research groups alone obtain £100m each year from organisations outside of the UK, generating significant inward investment.

• The largest average contributors over the last 7 years are £46m pa from the EU, £19m pa from global organisations (such as pharma), £19m pa from the USA (data from MRC’s Researchfish system).

% IMI funding received by UK, DE, FR, and NL (Calls 1-5)

• An example of UK success in securing competitive funding is the European Union Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI). The IMI has a €2bn budget.

• UK researchers have secured 30% of the IMI funding overall (both Germany and the Netherlands just 16%). However the funding secured by both German and Dutch SMEs was above that obtained by UK SMEs.

• This highlights that the private sector in these countries is strong, and research strengths in Germany are ideally placed to benefit from any relatively small decline in the UK’s academic competitiveness.

• IMI funding has made a significant difference to the UK. For example in 2013 the “European Lead Factory” an IMI award centred on BioCity Scotland in Lanarkshire brought £16m additional research funding to Scotland.

Medical Research “What’s it worth?”A report sponsored by the Academy of Medical Sciences, the MRC and Wellcome Trust (2008)

• UK public and charitable spend on cardiovascular disease (CVD) research between 1975-1992 (at 2005 prices) was £2bn.

• Time from expenditure on (CVD) research to its application into practice was on average 17 years.

• The total monetary value of QALYs gained from CVD interventions by UK patients over the period 1985-2005 was £92bn.

• Taking the health gain, cost of delivering these interventions (£17bn) and impact on GDP together, the best estimate of the internal rate of return from public and charitable medical CVD research and development is 39%.

• £122m was invested in CVD research in 1992 which, based on the this model, has provided a stream of benefits to the UK of nearly £50m each year.

Macro economic approaches – whole economy studies

1989

1987

1988

19901991

1992

20001999

2001

1998 1997

2002

1993

19951996

1994

2003

2004

2005 20072006

-.0

1

0

.01

.02

.03

.002 .0025 .003 .0035RCoun_RD_y_n_L1

Smoothed TFPG Fitted values

Smoothed TFPG and RCouncil R & D spend• Total factor productivity growth is

the extent to which growth occurs over and above that due to additional investment in capital, private sector research and development etc.

• There is a good correlation between research council expenditure and TFPG, but weak or no correlation between TFPG and civil or defence R&D.

• “Spillover” benefit is high from research council research.

Public support for innovation, intangible investment and productivity growth in the UK market sector (Haskell and Wallis, 2010) http://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/5280/1/Haskel%202010-01.pdf

“A reduction in research council spend of £1bn may reduce UK GDP by £10bn”

Economic benefits of improved health

Research has transformed the treatment of cardiovascular disease.

• From 1985 to 2005 net cardiovascular health gains in the UK totalled £53bn.• A total of 2.8 million additional quality adjusted life years (QALYs).• £69bn health gain, £16bn cost of providing these interventions in the NHS• Expenditure on cardiovascular disease research by the UK Government and

UK charities between 1975 to 1992 was approximately £2bn (at 2005 prices).• The lag between spending and changes in clinical practice is estimated to be

approximately 17 years.

• This includes net health gains from research-based interventions of:• £6.5bn from the treatment of chronic stable angina (e.g. using asprin,

statins).• £13.4bn from secondary prevention of chronic heart disease post-MI (e.g.

using asprin, beta blockers, statins).• £6.3bn from smoking cessation.• £0.9bn from revascularisation surgery.

MRC Researchfish – a process for capturing research outputs/outcomes/impacts

• Over 600 projects developing new products or interventions - at all stages of development have been reported by researchers using the online Researchfish system pioneered by the MRC

• These are also categorised in terms of product type (e.g. device, drug, behavioural intervention etc.)

• 110 have reached the market since 2006.

• For the first time we can track all of these, noting which are active, closed, seeking support, and which are progressing.

• 75% of projects are prior to the “valley of death”, 25% after.

• Around 80 would benefit from further investment –so could be “investable opportunities”.

• The first year in which we published this data (2011) the three hundred development projects were used by the science minister as an example of the untapped potential that increased funding for the “biomedical catalyst” initiative could unlock.

• The biomedical catalyst is now a £240m joint MRC/Technology Strategy Board initiative.

“Valley of death”

Innovate UK/MRC Biomedical Catalyst

• A four-year, £240m programme managed jointly by the MRC and Innovate UK.

• Aims to support academic and industry scientists to move their research more quickly from discovery to commercialisation.

• Links to existing MRC translational programmes and Innovate UK activities to provide a seamless set of support and funding options.

• 318 awards to date (132 academic led, 186 SME led).

• £254m grant funding inc. £8.3m from MRC to support academic costs on SME-led proposals.

• £120m matched private funding.

• £1bn in post-award financing, through licencing & contracts, grant funding or by being acquired.

DNA TechnologiesUK academic research has created a multi-billion dollar market

Watson and Crick working in MRC laboratories famously describe the structure of DNA

DNA Sequencing

MRC scientist Fred Sanger invents the first viable DNA sequencing technique

The Southern Blot

MRC scientist Ed Southern invents a technique to analyse DNA fragments that still underpins molecular biology today

1995 Oxford Gene Technologies (OGT) established to commercialise Ed Southern’s microarray technology

1998 Nematode Genome Sequence UK and US researchers including the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology’s Dr Sydney Brenner and Sir John Sulston finished sequencing the C. elegansgenome – the first complete sequence of a multicellular organism lays the foundation for the human genome project

2003 the Human Genome Project completes the human genome sequence

2005 Oxford NanoporeTechnologies (ONT) a spin out based on MRC and EPSRC funded research is bringing to market a transformative next generation sequencing approach

2007 Solexa a Cambridge spin out based on BBSRC funded work on SBS sequencing is acquired by US company Illumina

Imperial College spin out DNAe licenses technology to Life Technologies – they develop and market the sequencing approach as Ion Torrent

2005, the UK Forensic Science Service used DNA fingerprinting to match 40,000 samples from crime scenes to people’s records on the National DNA Database, including 165 homicides, 100 attempted murders and 570 rapes.

Worldwide market based on genomics and gene-based services is estimated at £3.5bn

2012 OGT employs 60 staff near Oxford and opens a New York office

2011 An economic analysis suggests that the US $3bn investment in the HGP has provided almost $800bn of benefit to the US alone

2013 ONT employs 90 staff in Oxford and Cambridge, and has raised £105m since formation in 2005

2012 Roche launches an unsuccessful hostile bid for Illumina of $6bn

2013 Life Technologies is acquired by Thermo Fisher for $14bn

1953

2000

1970

1990

1980

1984 DNA fingerprinting technology invented by MRC-funded scientist Sir

Alec Jeffreys at the University of Leicester. Led

to research into genetic markers of human diseases

2010

DNA Fingerprinting has revolutionised forensic science, matched donors to patients in

need of lifesaving organ transplants, and provided an infallible method of paternity

testing

Monoclonal AntibodiesA new therapy that has revolutionised medicine

Cesar Milstein and Georges Kohler of MRC LMB devise a way to isolate specific monoclonal antibodies, a discovery which brings them a Nobel Prize in 1984.

The therapeutic potential of monoclonal antibodies is realised when Greg Winter devises a technique for “humanising” mouse antibodies in 1986

An early monoclonal antibody drug, Humira® was developed, and then licensed out, by MRC spin-out Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) formed in 1989

Humira® reaches blockbuster status with $1bn in sales

Abbott pays the MRC over £100m in lieu of royalties for Humira®

MRC received more than £7m as part of GlaxoSmithKline’s £230m acquisition of the MRC spin out Domantis Ltd

CAT was acquired by AstraZeneca in 2006 for £702m at which time CAT employed over 300 staff. This activity is still part of the larger AZ-owned, MedImmune, based in Cambridge

By August 2009 Humira® was being used in 80 countries in the treatment of 370,000 patients, and it is now estimated to be the world’s top earning pharmaceutical product, with sales predicted to reach $10bn by 2016

The pipeline of therapeutic antibody drugs is now the fastest growing in the pharmaceutical industry, representing a third of new therapies, with a $40 billion global market in 2009/10, projected to reach $60 billion by 2014

MRC research has played a key role in the development of 10% of monoclonal antibody drugs currently approved for use worldwide

The discovery of the role of TNF in rheumatoid arthritis by Feldman and Maini at Imperial College in 1991 and subsequent use of monoclonal antibody therapies to inhibit TNF has transformed treatment with more than 2 million patients worldwidereceiving anti-TNF antibody for rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases.

1975

2005

2006-2009

2010

1986-9

2000

In 2000 Domantis Ltd an antibody company

is formed by Greg Winter and Ian

Tomlinson at the MRC LMB

Magnetic Resonance ImagingA new technology that has revolutionised medicine

MRI invented, research financed by MRC

Oxford Instruments (Oxford University’s first spin-out in 1959) provides first superconducting magnets for MRI.

British Technology Group licenses intellectual property from Oxford, Nottingham and Aberdeen Universities having built a strong patent portfolio.

First MRI machine available in 1983, in clinical use in 1985

Between 1986 and 1989 99% of the world’s MRI manufacturers were licensed including GE, Marconi, Siemens, Toshiba, Hitachi and Shimadzu, Bruker, Fonar and Esaote.

20,000 MRI machines used world-wide, 60 million scans performed every year

Estimated £200m returned to Universities under royalty arrangements first with Johnson and Johnson, GE and then others.

US company GE buys Amersham Life Sciences for £5.7bn, increasing its base in the UK and securing medical diagnostic capabilities here

Nobel Prize awarded to Professor Peter Mansfield

Global MRI sales $4.5bn (2010)

MRI associated industries estimated to add around £600m to UK GDP between 2011 and 20151

GE Healthcare has 30% of Global MRI market. GE UK sales (across all sectors £5bn, 19,000 employees – 1000 of which are at Amersham in medical diagnostics)

Oxford Instruments is a leader supplier of parts/servicing for MRI machines (has 1900 staff worldwide and joined the FTSE 250 in 2011, the company spends £29m on R&D and has a turnover of £330m)

Increased success in spinal surgery resulting from MRI is estimated to save the UK £166m each year in terms of working days

Improved limb salvage surgery estimated to save the NHS £5-10m per year.

Significant improvements in cancer therapy, for example breast and cervical cancer result from use of MRI

1974-1980

1990

2003

2010

1983

1 Economic impact case study MRI (Oxford Economics, 2012) http://www.stfc.ac.uk/resources/pdf/oe_-_mri_final_case_study_21_1_2013.pdf

Open innovation: MRC partnership with AstraZeneca

• Scheme allowing MRC funding for UK medical researchers to access 22 deprioritised AstraZeneca compounds.

• Researchers will use the compounds to understand disease mechanisms and explore treatment opportunities.

• 15 collaborative projects were funded in October 2012.

• 8 involve clinical trials of potential new therapies and 7focus on preclinical work.

• The collaboration won the ‘Best Partnership Alliance’ award at the 2012 annual SCRIP Awards.

MRC/industry asset sharing

• New partnership between the MRC and seven pharma companies announced in July 2014.

• Researchers will use the compounds to understand disease mechanisms and explore treatment opportunities.

EMINENT network

• The Experimental Medicine Initiative to Explore New Therapies.

• The MRC, GlaxoSmithKline and five UK universities collaborating to crack difficult disease areas.

• Investigation of fundamental biological mechanisms responsible for a range of inflammatory diseases accelerating the development of innovative treatments.

• Up to £8m over five years matched with GSK in-kind contributions.

• Coordinated by UCL, bringing together teams of researchers from the Universities of Cambridge, Glasgow, Newcastle, Imperial College London and UCL, with GSK researchers.

Division of Signal TransductionTherapy, Dundee

Sir Philip CohenCo-founder of the DSTT and former Director of MRC PPU

• 1998: £6.5m, 5 years (Astra, Zeneca, Pfizer, SmithKline Beecham, NovoNordisk and later Boehringer Ingelheim)

• 2003: £15.2m, 5 years (AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Co, Merck KGaA, Pfizer)

• 2008: £10.8m, 4 years (AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck-Serono, Merck KGaA and Pfizer)

• 2012: £14.4m, 4 years (AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Merck-Serono and Pfizer)

• Brings total investment to £50m.

• Protein phosphorylation now one of the largest areas of research worldwide with the market for drugs that act on kinases estimated at $15.2bn in 2009.

Stratified Medicine Initiative

• Set up in 2010/11 and represented a new way of funding from the MRC. Launched in December 2012.

• £60m initiative to develop disease-specific research consortia, involving industry partners.

• Consortia exploring predictors of response and mechanisms underpinning disease stratification, where there is evidence that therapeutically relevant strata exist.

• Builds on the MRC/ABPI Inflammation and Immunology (I&I) Initiative

• Pfizer is a partner on all three I&I consortia.

• A total of £38m has been awarded so far supporting nine consortia (three I&I and six new).

Stratified Medicine Initiative consortia

• Rheumatoid arthritis (c. £5.0m) Led by Professor Constantino Pitzalis (Queen Mary, University of London). Supported in partnership with Arthritis Research UK. Industry partners: Abbvie, Amgen, MedImmune, Roche, Activiomics, Complete Genomics, Jansenn, Pfizer, Qiagen.

• Hepatitis C (c. £4.1m) Led by Dr Ellie Barnes (University of Manchester). Industry partners: GSK, Merck, Jansenn, Actelion, United Therapeutics Europe, Conatus Pharmaceuticals, Okairos, OncImmune, Medivir, Gilead Sciences, Boehringer-Ingelheim.

• Gaucher’s disease (c. £3.0m) Professor Timothy Cox, (University of Cambridge) Industry partners: Shire, Genzyme, Actelion.

Stratified Medicine Initiative consortia

• Primary biliary cirrhosis (c. £4.8m) Led by Professor David Jones. Industry partners: Jansenn, Inova Diagnostics, Lumena, Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Dr Falk Pharma, Biotie Therapies, Medigene, Biosignatures, NovImmune SA.

• Psoriasis (c. £4.9m) Led by Professor Chris Griffiths (The University of Manchester). Industry partners: AbbVie, Becton Dickinson and Company, Celgene, GSK, MedImmune, Novartis, Pfizer, Qiagen.

• Schizophrenia (c. £3.9m) Led by Professor Shitij Kapur (Kings College London). Industry partners: Amgen, Jansenn, Lilly, Roche.

In 2012, ten UK funders invested £19m in four e-health informatics centres (eHIRCs)

Aims:• Optimise the use of health records in research• Address the UK’s capacity building

requirements • Support a sustainable health informatics

research base

London

HeRC

CIPHER

Also in 2012, the £2m UK Health Informatics Research Network, was established to:

• Coordinate training, share good practice and develop methodologies

• Engage with the public, collaborate with industry and the NHS

UCL Partners

UCL, LSHTM, Queen Mary, Public Health England

Scotland

Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Aberdeen, Strathclyde, MRC HGU, NHS NSS

CIPHER

Swansea, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Leicester, Sussex, NWIS, Public Health Wales

HeRC N8

Manchester, York, Lancaster, Liverpool, Sheffield, AHSNs

Health Informatics Research Centres

Map Source: www.m62.net

• A research collaboration that integrates and scales, at the UK level, the work of four Health Informatics Research Centres.

• Aims to :

• Provide physical and electronic infrastructure

• Support partnership by co-locating NHS organisations, industry, and other UK academic centres

• Facilitate collaboration, the sharing of datasets, and the adoption of common standards

• Develop new opportunities for future linkage and analysis of data at scale

The Farr Institute

- William Farr

“Diseases are more easily prevented than cured and

the first step to their prevention is the discovery

of their exciting causes”

>£100m MRC Investment in Health & Biomedical Informatics Infrastructure

Farr@Scotland•Aberdeen•Dundee•St Andrews•Edinburgh•Strathclyde•Glasgow•Leicester

Farr@HeRC•Newcastle•Lancaster•York•Bradford•Manchester•Liverpool•Sheffield

Farr@London•UCL•LSHTM•QMUL

Farr@CIPHER•Swansea•Cardiff•Welsh Gov•Bristol

•Brighton•Exeter•Surrey•Oxford

MRC Medical Bioinformatics

Leeds

Oxford

Uganda•Sanger•Cambridge•Oxford

Warwick-Swansea•Cardiff•PHE Wales•Birmingham

UCL (eMedLab)•EMBL-EBI•Sanger•KCL

•Crick•LSHTM•QMUL

Imperial•EMBL-EBI•Cambridge•Nottingham•Oxford•Farr@Swansea

•HPA•MRC CTU

•NHSS•PHS

Data Centre

• Aims are to:

• deliver products & services quicker & more

effectively

• increase academic & commercial collaboration

• Enable commercialisation of academic research

• help existing UK SMEs to become competitive &

sustainable

• leverage investment into UK-based innovative

businesses, particularly into earlier, high-quality, high-

risk projects

Origin and aims of the Biomedical Catalyst

Biomedical Catalyst Funding Facts & Figures

• 318 awards (132 academic led, 186 SME led)

• £254m grant funding inc. £8.3m commitment from MRC to

support academic costs on SME-led proposals

• £120m matched private funding; £375m total project costs

• Post-award, companies have realised at least £1lbn in

financing, through licencing & contracts, grant funding or by

being acquired.

• Over 40% of companies supported by Innovate UK have

originated in the academic sector, with more in-licensing

academic IP

First Human Study of Autologous Macrophage Therapy for Liver Cirrhosis

• Professor Stuart Forbes, MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh

• Deaths from cirrhosis have doubled in the last ten years in UK, with chronic liver disease causing 1 in 50 of all Scottish deaths

• Clinical trial using bone marrow derived macrophages to promote liver regeneration and reduce, helping the liver repair itself

• Based on MRC-funded discovery science

• £3m grant to conduct the first human study of autologous Macrophage Therapy as a potential treatment for Liver Cirrhosis.

33

http://www.mrc.ac.uk/news-events/news/boosting-cell-production-could-help-

treat-liver-disease/

Confidence in Concept

Funding scheme to promote the development ofa translational culture within the university.

Funding provided directly to the university.

Support for tightly defined projects designed to create proof of concept data

6-9 months in duration

Promoting transition of discovery science outcomes into clearly defined translational pathways.

Enabling innovative translational strategies.

Providing awards of £250,000 to £1,200,000.

Confidence in Concept

Leicester

Queen Mary

Cambridge

Oxford

UCL

Imperial College London

LSTM

Edinburgh/Heriot Watt

Glasgow

Newcastle

Liverpool

Nottingham

Aberdeen

Dundee

ManchesterSheffield

Leeds

Birmingham

CardiffBath

King’s College London

Belfast

1 year funding2 years funding3 years funding

Strathclyde

Awarded a total of £28M over the

three years since its launch in 2012

Proximity to discovery

March 2013: AstraZeneca announced its decision to move 2,000 jobs from Cheshire to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and invest

£330m in the new facility.

A new funding scheme to support research organisations to use creative approaches to building relationships with industry partners. Support to allow RO to be proactive in developing new opportunities for collaboration.

Enhance academic understanding of industry or vice versa

Enabling universities to highlight opportunities for potential industry partners

People exchanges to enhance skills, knowledge and understanding

Exchanges are not expected to exceed 6 months

Providing awards up to £250,000

Proximity to Discovery: Industry Engagement Fund

P2D:IEF Awards 2014

16 awards totalling £5m

Conclusions?

Now in its second century, the MRC remains committed to delivering world-leading discovery

science for health.

We are also committed to promoting the (commercial) translation of discoveries to deliver

gains in health and wealth.