Innovate UK-funded biotech company accelerates cheaper drug and vaccine manufacture

An Innovate UK-backed biotech company has achieved a pioneering biocomputer breakthrough which is accelerating the development and manufacture of cheaper drugs and vaccines.

BiologIC Technologies, inventor of the world’s first biocomputer, has developed 3D printed ‘lab-on-a-chip’ platforms - miniaturised devices that integrate multiple laboratory functions onto a single chip.

These enable faster, more efficient, and cost-effective analysis of biological samples, with applications ranging from drug testing to point-of-care diagnostics. Thanks to Analysis for Innovators (A4I), a grant funding programme run by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, BiologIC was able to access the expertise and advanced equipment of the National Measurement Laboratory (NML) hosted at LGC.

As a result the Cambridge-based company has achieved a massive leap in its understanding of how the plastic materials used in 3D printing the chips interact with biological applications.

It is now able to demonstrate greater biocompatibility and stability of its ‘lab-on-a-chip’ which means pharmaceutical manufacturers and Contract, Design and Manufacturing Organisations (CDMOs) can now speed up the work needed before developing minimum viable products, which will ultimately lead to faster time-to-market and cheaper drugs and vaccines.

Commenting on BiologIC’s experience of the A4I programme, Dr Colin Barker, chief scientific officer at BiologIC Technologies, said: “Without access to the high-end analytics, and, more critically, the world class expertise at NML made possible through the A4I funding, it would likely have taken us several years to achieve the same insights.

“We’ve already taken the learning we’ve gained from the grant and applied it in real time. We have several active projects, where we have directly applied our new knowledge to improve customer outcomes. This grant directly led to an increase in our understanding, which has had an immediate impact, and greater commercial success.”

“By the nature of them being 3D printable materials, they’re very reactive,” Barker explained. “And so, part of Biologic’s proprietary know-how is how to take those materials and treat them to make them biocompatible. But that’s a very complex, very slow process.”

But the pioneering technology company - which has been taking products to market since 2020 - did not have the funds or specific expertise required for full investigation of these interactions.

“Our customers are trying to produce advanced biology products at scale with robust reproducibility,” Barker added. “The greater understanding of our materials through the A4I grant allows us to standardise and streamline our production methodologies, delivering reproducible results at a lower cost.

“Personalised medicines by their nature don’t have economies of scale, and price tags can run into millions of pounds per patient. The BiologIC platform provides the paradigm shift in automation technologies required to enable disruptive economics and democratise access to these new therapies.”

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily

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