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Deep Science Ventures (DSV), a UK-based deeptech venture creator, and Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC), a life sciences service dedicated to turning drug discovery into commercial breakthroughs, today announced a strategic collaboration to address challenges in delivering medicines into the brain.
While recent scientific breakthroughs have identified numerous targets for neurological conditions, the difficulty of effectively transporting these treatments across the blood-brain barrier and into the central nervous system (CNS) remains a primary challenge for global health.
According to the World Health Organization’s Global Status Report on Neurology, over 40 per cent of the global population is living with CNS diseases, making them a leading global cause of ill health and disability.
Developing new solutions could unlock access for rare neurological disorders and expand treatment to large or underserved patient populations, including those with diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and various brain cancers.
Directly addressing critical gaps in healthcare means these innovations have the potential to improve patient outcomes while creating clinical and commercial opportunities for biotech and pharma companies. The first phase of the partnership will see an in-depth review of the current medicines landscape conducted to identify opportunities for innovation.
This information will then be used to identify systemic gaps in brain-entry technologies. The long-term ambition is for novel approaches that meet the partners’ investment criteria to be spun out into new ventures focused on high-impact solutions, with pre-seed funding provided.
A core part of DSV’s approach involves building future founding teams to form new companies that will address challenges across multiple sectors. Future founders will work on opportunities pre-scoped by DSV, de-risking the standard founder proposition.
“The blood-brain barrier remains one of the most complex issues in modern medicine and with over 40 per cent of the world’s population facing neurological conditions, it’s imperative that we find an optimal solution to this problem,” said Adam Tomassi-Russell, Senior Director, Deep Science Ventures.
By pooling our venture-creation expertise with MDC’s discovery capabilities, we can offer the right founders a frictionless environment in which to tackle the CNS delivery gap.
If we can solve the ‘how’ of brain entry more effectively, we can unlock a new frontier of CNS therapeutics and address the huge unmet need in these diseases.”
Dr Nicola Heron, Chief Strategy Officer at Medicines Discovery Catapult, said:
“At MDC, we are committed to transforming bold ideas into better treatments. This collaboration presents an opportunity to discover new technologies that could have a significant impact on patients and society.”
Lead image: Magnific.