Oxford firm given share of £3m for cystic fibrosis research

Oxford Drug Design is among the first three companies to be awarded a share of the Collaborative Discovery Programme fund announced by the Cystic Fibrosis Antimicrobial Resistance (CF AMR) Syndicate.

The programme, funded by LifeArc, a self-funded, not-for-profit medical research charity, will support six early-stage antimicrobial projects over two years.

The aim is to accelerate new treatments for lung infections in people with cystic fibrosis, which affects more than 162,000 people globally, including 11,000 people in the UK.

People with the condition suffer from life-threatening lung infections that can permanently change their lung function and reduce their quality of life.

The growing resistance to antimicrobials and a lack of effective treatments means there is an urgent need to identify new therapies.

Oxford Drug Design, a biotechnology company using AI computational methods to discover and develop novel therapeutics, has been awarded £466,000 of the £3 million fund.

Dr Paul Finn, chief scientific officer at Oxford Drug Design, said: "We are very excited to receive this CF AMR Syndicate Collaborative Drug Discovery Programme award.

Dr Paul Finn, chief scientific officer at Oxford Drug Design (Image: Oxford Drug Design) "We will be expanding our antibacterial discovery efforts into this new area of application, which is of high unmet medical need, and advancing the programme with our proprietary computational and GenAI platform."

The 18-month project will be undertaken in collaboration with professor Jo Fothergill of Liverpool University, an expert in this field of research.

It will build on previous work by Oxford Drug Design in identifying new compounds to treat multi-drug-resistant bacterial infections.

These compounds will be used as starting points to develop a treatment optimised specifically for people with cystic fibrosis.

Research and development advisors from the CF AMR Syndicate will provide wider support for Oxford Drug Design and other awardees to help advance their projects.

This will include a group of experts from drug discovery, academia, and the clinic, as well as people with lived experience drawn from the CF AMR network.

Dr Paula Sommer, head of research at Cystic Fibrosis Trust, said: "For people with cystic fibrosis, lung infections can cause breathlessness and difficulty breathing.

"They can also cause major disruptions to day-to-day life, meaning people can miss work or school.

"Lung infections are hard to treat due to antimicrobial resistance, which is why we’re delighted to see the CF AMR Syndicate support these projects that will develop new antimicrobial treatments for cystic fibrosis."

Bicycle Therapeutics and BioVersys are also among the first companies granted funding.