Delivering Integrated Solutions for Human Infections

Based in the Liverpool City Region and Cheshire and Warrington, this academia/industry/NHS North West Consortium will deliver integrated solutions for human infections. The needs for infectious disease control remain high nationally and internationally, with antimicrobial resistance, hospital-acquired infections, Zika, Ebola, TB, malaria and HIV still making headlines. There is a revolution coming that will radically change the pathway to market for new antibiotics, drugs, vaccines and public health insecticides for the prevention and treatment of these human diseases. We are in the vanguard of developing innovative approaches to product development, with improved specifications of disease and pathogen target product profiles, through interrogation of human disease data and delivering evidence-based recommendations for product use post-license. We will establish platforms across the whole R & D pipeline from discovery to market placement that will directly reduce the global burden of infectious disease and will bring products into operational use in a faster, smarter, cheaper and more effective format. Our new platforms will: 1. Develop an accessible high throughput screening system with substantive small molecule and fractionated antimicrobial generating Natural Product libraries for antimicrobial, hygiene and household product discovery programmes, with backing from major Pharma and NW-based consumer products companies. 2. Develop an accessible Cat 3, based high throughput whole cell screening system for intracellular infectious agents requiring high level containment and provide improved pharmacokinetic models for new molecules. 3. Provide access to safe and effective human challenge models. This and the platforms above will reduce the late stage failures in clinical trials, drastically reducing industries cost and time investments. 4. Use state-of-the-art microwave and machine learning technologies generating an accessible platform to develop non-invasive diagnostics to quality assure disease prevention products and diagnose infections. 5. Improve the format and effectiveness of randomized control trials to reduce the time, complexity and cost of generating robust data to support international and country based product approvals and registrations. Extending this post license to establish a model platform for assessing the optimal placement of products in settings where multiple interventions are used to tackle infection. Sustainability of the platforms is guaranteed from use by organisations locally and globally.The project leverages £94.33M of guaranteed external investment for an £18.65M SIPF contribution to the programme. It will have a substantial impact on jobs and GVA for the LCR and C& W regions, attracting substantive international investment into the region from multiple sources from the outset.