BioWorld International Correspondent

LONDON - The medical research charity Wellcome Trust made the first investments in its £91 million (US$178.7 million) Seeding Drug Discovery program, handing out grants to three small start-ups to fund projects in cancer, obesity and anti-infectives.

The program, which provides grants for specific compounds, aims to bridge the funding gap in early stage drug discovery by helping academic researchers advance small molecules to the point where they are of commercial interest.

The first three recipients of awards under the scheme are as follows:

• Steve Bloom, professor at Imperial College London and chief scientific officer of London-based Thiakis Ltd, for the development of a long-acting formulation of a natural gut hormone involved in appetite control as a treatment for obesity;

• Prolysis Ltd., of Oxford, UK, for the development of an antibacterial that is active against methicillin-resistant staphylococcal infections (MRSA);

• ProXara Biotechnology Ltd, a spinout from the University of Bristol, to develop a protein kinase B (PKB) inhibitor for treating lung cancer.

"Even though obesity, cancer and MRSA are three of the most urgent challenges faced by our society today, there are many more innovative approaches to how they might be tackled than there are drugs being progressed in clinical development," said Ted Bianco, director of technology transfer at the Wellcome Trust.

"The researchers that have received our first awards have already made exciting discoveries at the basic research level, which we hope can be translated into tangible health benefits," added Bianco.

Wellcome's funding is designed to take the research forward to a point that makes the projects more attractive to venture capital firms, industry and public-private partnerships.

While the three companies concerned have received venture capital backing for their wider portfolios, Bianco told BioWorld International that the Wellcome grant money is hypothecated for specific projects. "We are not putting money in to further the overall development of the company; we are backing distinct compounds."

The compound being developed by Prolysis under the £3.48 million award from the Wellcome Trust blocks the ability of the MRSA bacteria to divide and multiply by inhibiting the function of a bacterial protein FtsZ, which is essential for cell division.

The £2.3 million grant to Bloom, a leading expert in the role played by gut hormones in appetite control, covers the development of a synthetic controlled-release formulation of pancreatic polypeptide. That is released during a meal to signal satiety to the brain, and halt eating.

Meanwhile, ProXara is to receive £2.8 million for further development of a molecule that prevents PKB from blocking apoptosis, or programmed cell death, by preventing it from binding to the cell membrane.

Bianco said it has become increasingly difficult for research groups outside industry to secure funding for translational research in small molecule therapeutics. "Whereas the commercial sector has a keen interest in promising new technologies, a high level of evidence is required that a novel discovery represents a real opportunity for drug development."

The seeding drug discovery initiative is aimed in particular at interdisciplinary research groups working on novel targets, or involving new understanding of disease mechanisms.

"We hope these projects will encourage closer collaboration between academic researchers, the biotech sector and its investors, and the pharmaceutical industry," Bianco said.

"The ultimate aim is to spawn the future development of new medicines in areas of unmet medical need. We are seeking to catalyse an opening up of early drug discovery to a wider cast of players than has been hitherto possible," he added.

A second round of funding applications will be considered in May.