The Institute of Pharmaceutical Innovation

Wednesday 29th October, 2003 6m Institute to make University a Global Player

The Institute for Pharmaceutical Innovation (IPI), housed in a new five-storey building on the university’s main campus, will give the pharmaceutical industry an unrivalled research base to bring new drugs to the global market.

The centre will use the very latest artificial intelligence and simulation-based computer methods together with advanced analytical research, to predict how drugs will behave in the human body.

Developing a new drug takes between eight and 12 years, costing around 500m, but the IPI research programme aims to reduce this time and cost by using computer simulation for the design, formulation and manufacturing of new medicines rather than by conventional testing.
Director of the IPI, Paul Thorning, said: “This is an exciting time for all of us involved with the development of new drugs.

“The IPI will be a truly world-class facility and it is our vision that it will make a significant contribution to innovation in healthcare both through its own research activities and in providing high quality services to bioscience businesses.”

The lower floors of the IPI will house the analytical, laboratory and computational facilities that will be used by both the university’s researchers and pharmaceutical industry clients.
Regional development agency Yorkshire Forward has sponsored the top floor of the building which will act as an ‘incubator’ to support new enterprises.

It is hoped the institute will create a number of spin-offs and create a cluster of innovative bioscience companies in Yorkshire.

Funding for the institute has come from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (1.875m), Yorkshire Forward (֣2m), the DTI’s Science and Re-search Investment Fund (2.63m) and 280,000 from other funds.