Medicines Discovery Catapult has announced the launch of a strategic partnership with Waters Corporation. The catapult will work with the mass spectrometry (MS) manufacturer to give small and medium enterprises (SMEs) early access to new MS technology.
The partnership will give the SMEs working with UK drug discovery facility access to these technologies, which are not yet fully commercially available.
Mass spectrometry platforms are key for driving medicines discovery forward through richer decision-making data. The technology enables mass detection and measurement of many molecules simultaneously, generating biological fingerprints and providing a detailed picture of how cells and tissues respond to drug treatment.
Dr Peter Simpson, CSO of MD Catapult, said: “This strategic partnership with Waters strengthens our laboratory capabilities and supports our ambition to deploy truly state-of-the-art mass spectrometry as a key platform, to make drug discovery faster and more efficient.”
MD Catapult’s current mass spectrometry capabilities are already impacting many projects with SME, academic and industrial collaborators.
For example, mass spectrometry imaging is generating spatial information on drug distribution, tissue penetration, and biomarker expression for those who are advancing candidate drugs towards clinical evaluation.
In addition, direct mass spectrometry workflows are being applied for cell-based assays and target engagement to help select the next generation of candidate drugs with greater precision.
Waters’ Mass Spectrometry Centre of Excellence is located close to MD Catapult’s centre of operations in Cheshire, UK. Though the partnership the Catapult will expand their current mass spectrometry offering with Waters’ innovative tools and R&D expertise.
MD Catapult will be able to improve the performance and sensitivity of existing platforms through access to Waters’ pre-commercial technologies, bringing their benefits to UK SMEs much earlier than would otherwise be possible.
Medicines Discovery Catapult will also work collaboratively with Waters’ scientists to generate real-world data sets and case studies to influence progression and advancements of the new pre-commercial and beta phase technologies, ensuring they are optimised to benefit the field of drug discovery.
James Langridge, Waters Corporation, said: “Waters Corporation has supported Medicines Discovery Catapult since their inception. Today, we are very excited to enter into this latest agreement to enable MD Catapults’s customer to access Waters’ proprietary mass spectrometry technologies, including direct from sample mass spectrometry solutions.
Langridge hopes that in return, they will gain new insights from the UK’s burgeoning pharmaceutical innovators.
