The Institute of Pharmaceutical Innovation

Thursday 28th January, 2010 Yorkshire Forward announces innovation awards shortlist

Prof. Anant Paradkar’s team have been shortlisted for one of the upcoming Yorkshire Forward Innovator 2010 awards.

The Partners in Innovation Award, in association with the prestigious Lord Stafford Awards, which have rewarded knowledge transfer between businesses and universities in the Midlands since 1998, is aimed at celebrating and rewarding businesses which have collaborated with and used the region’s research community, resulting in the successful development of an innovation with the potential to deliver improved business performance and commercial success.

Finalists for the award are:

Nature’s Laboratory and the Institute of Pharmaceutical Innovation developed an innovative water soluble deodorised propolis (resin collected by bees and used by them as an immune defence mechanism), which has numerous therapeutic effects, including antimicrobial, immunomodulatory and anticancer. Propolis product development previously posed challenges becuase of its poor solubility.

Double Green Limited and The University of York, who developed the use of glycerine, a co-product from biodiesel production, in various applications, including th generation of biogas. The Research and Development work carried out at the University of York contributed to the characterisation of glycerin at different stages of production as well as the development of protocols for the synthesis of added value chemicals from glycerine.

Peratech Limited and the University of Leeds formed a partnership to produce printable electronic switches and sensors. The resulting Quantum Tunnelling Composite (QTC) ink is a nanotech material which is extremely sensitive to pressure and is used in keyboards and keypads of mobile telephones to interpret the touches and gestures of the user. The ink can be applied during the normal keypad printing process and provides much more functionality than discrete pressure sensing components at a fraction of the cost.

This collaborative project was funded by METRC.