Experts from the life sciences industry have shared key insights into how healthcare innovation is changing and the next wave of medicines.
The community came together this month at Imperial Collider, a partnering event that helps turn science into medicines and other innovations. Speakers also discussed what it takes to successfully translate an academic breakthrough into a product that improves lives.
"Imperial Collider provided an excellent mix of insights from big pharma, drug discovery partnerships, top Imperial biotech successes and experts from the investment and spinout ecosystem", said Dr Mike Romanos, Imperial's Associate Dean for Enterprise (Medicine).
Here are six key takeaways from the day...
1. Science is transforming medicine
Breakthroughs in basic science have transformed the face of medicine. While small molecule drugs are a pillar of modern medicine, and remain an important focus of innovation, new modalities based on these advances now accounting for eight out of the ten top best selling drugs.
If you look at the world's most important biomedical discoveries, they're almost always based on breakthroughs you can trace to a top global university – because that is where the brilliance resides. Richard Mason CEO of Apollo Therapeutics
These new types of therapy include mRNA vaccines and monoclonal antibody treatments, which were both catapulted into widespread use by the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to advance.
An anti-COVID-19 long-acting monoclonal antibody therapy licensed by AstraZeneca from RQ Bio, a startup co-founded by Imperial's Professor Paul Kellam (Department of Infectious Disease), was recently approved in the EU.
Advanced therapies such as gene and cell therapies are also continuing to make progress, and there are myriad newer modalities coming through.
One modality currently attracting major interest is antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), which combine the potency of a small molecule with the targeting ability of an antibody. Imperial spinout Myricx Bio received an unprecedented £90 million Series A funding round in 2024 for its cancer ADC candidate, which uses a novel payload developed following a scientific breakthrough by company co-founder Professor Ed Tate (Department of Chemistry).
Biologics will continue to drive a renaissance in drug development, said Dr Steve Rees OBE, Senior Vice-President of Discovery Sciences at AstraZeneca, speaking at Collider. "In the last decade, 40 or more medicines were approved every year. But with biologics set to get bigger, we can look forward to a greater number of approvals a year as we move into the next decade."
2. The AI revolution is just beginning
AI is no longer just the future. "We're at the starting gate in terms of AI," said AstraZeneca's Dr Rees. "We don't know the journey for the next ten years or the full impact on drug discovery and development, but we're already using it to identify drug targets, which molecules to make, and biomarkers of disease."
We can stratify patients to provide them with the most effective treatments. That requires large relevant data sets, like we have at Imperial. Dr Mike Romanos
"It's not just the AI models, but how they're used with data," added Dr Romanos. "A lot of the big players are in a race to get hold of the data that feeds all AI applications, be it clinical data or target structures.
"With precision medicine, we can stratify patients using early biomarkers of disease, and provide them with the most effective treatments. That requires large relevant data sets. We have large clinical data sets at Imperial and are continuing to build more, which we are leveraging in this area."
3. Academics need science and commercial nous
Academics often launch spinout companies to bring their discoveries from labs to patients, often via an acquisition by a large company. But in what's currently a tough funding environment, the teams need the very best competitive science and a sense of the commercial application to access investment.
We're interested in whether the science is novel and has utility. We can help people build out teams from that.We can help people build out teams from that." Clare Terlouw Head of LifeArc Ventures
Dr Rana Lonnen, an Imperial alumnus who spent eight years leading equity investments as a Managing Director at Novartis, said: "When I talk to academic founders, I ask them to think about where the market is, where the unmet need is, who is going to pay for the technology, and who might acquire the company."
Dr Barbara Domayne-Hayman, Entrepreneur in Residence at the Francis Crick Institute, offered a similar take: "Twenty years ago, you didn't even think about the payer landscape until Phase 2. Now you have to think about it from the beginning."
However, the panel said that the academics should think first and foremost about offering leading science – and that to excel on the business side they should bring experienced commercial experts into their teams, a task that investors sometimes help with. "We're interested in whether the science is novel and has utility," said Clare Terlouw, Head of LifeArc Ventures. "We can help people build out teams from that."
4. Spinouts are not the only route
While spinout companies are a popular vehicle for turning scientific breakthroughs into new technologies and treatments, other routes to market are available and can sometimes be smoother and faster.
The whole idea behind Apollo is to access the brilliance in institutions like Imperial, and then put an industrial team around that. Richard Mason CEO of Apollo Therapeutics
Apollo Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company originally founded by Imperial, the University of Cambridge, UCL, and three big pharmaceutical companies, works to gain close and early access to discoveries from leading UK universities, in-license them, and provide the resources and drug development expertise to bring them to the clinic.
The company has raised $450 million to date, of which it has used $66 million to fund three highly successful Imperial programmes – for example, a monoclonal antibody treatment for a lung blood vessel disorder, pulmonary hypertension, that is now in patient trials.
Richard Mason, Apollo's CEO, said: "If you look at the world's most important biomedical discoveries, they're almost always based on breakthroughs you can trace to a top global university – because that is where the brilliance resides. The whole idea behind Apollo is to access the brilliance in institutions like Imperial, and then put an industrial team around that. We translate breakthroughs into important medicines with big commercial potential."
5. Imperial infrastructure can support biomedicine
Imperial is not only home to brilliant people – it also provides advanced infrastructure that is helping researchers, startups, and major companies carry out translational research, gain skills, and de-risk new industrial workflows.
These include, for example, the London Biofoundry, which offers a suite of equipment and support to the synthetic biology community; the Imperial-LMS Drug Discovery Hub, which provides expertise and infrastructure for early stage drug discovery; the Imperial Clinical Trials Unit, which provides professional support for the design, conduct and dissemination of clinical trials; and iCARE, which provides secure access to health data for projects focused on aims such as improving care quality and tackling health inequalities.
6. Partnerships are vital
"Imperial was founded with a mission to be useful, and we need industry partnerships to do that. It's an area we've always been strong in, but we want to work with partners at even greater scale to tackle the challenges that we all face globally," said Professor Graham Cooke, Vice Dean (Research) in Imperial's Faculty of Medicine.
"If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together, Imperial has a large team of specialists dedicated to supporting and expanding our partnerships with innovative companies and investors," added Alex Elkins, Imperial's Co-Director of Enterprise (Partnerships).
Making connections
Imperial Collider is an annual event, formerly known as All You Can Innovate, that provides researchers, founders, industry professionals and investors with an opportunity to share knowledge and build connections.
"This year's Collider had a fantastic attendance, and we're optimistic that conversations started that day will translate down the line into new medicines and technologies that make a real difference to people's lives," said Dr Aicha el Masri, Partnerships Executive (Medicine) at Imperial, who was one of the event's organisers.
You can learn about future events by joining Imperial Enterprise's mailing list or following the team on LinkedIn.
Imperial staff and external businesses who would like support to build collaborations can contact the partnerships and commercialisation specialists at Imperial Enterprise.
Article photos: Portrait of Professor Ed Tate by Jason Alden, all others by James Tye / Imperial College London
