UK to develop world’s first fully-automated drug discovery facility

Business Secretary Greg Clark has announced a new project to develop an integrated suite of new technologies able to accelerate the discovery of high-quality lead molecules, dramatically reducing the cost of drug discovery, and transforming the pharmaceutical industry.
The project will be based at the Rosalind Franklin Institute in Harwell, Oxfordshire and developed through a collaboration between companies, SMEs, universities, and the Medicines Discovery Catapult. It will pioneer hands-free molecular discovery to generate new drugs at a speed of up to ten times than that of the norm, and harness disruptive new technologies such as AI and robotics to improve understanding of biology, in the hope of developing new diagnostics, new drugs, and new treatments.
Lead scientist, Professor Adam Nelson, from the University of Leeds said: “This won’t be a traditional chemistry lab. It will have a unique design and harness robotics and AI to automate the discovery process. It will allow hundreds or thousands of candidate molecules to be investigated at a time. We aim to increase productivity by 5 to 10 times. But faster processing isn’t enough. We also want to find higher quality starting points for drug discovery to maximise the chances of success at later stages in the discovery pipeline. This will enable to remain globally competitive in bring new drugs to the market that can meet the needs of patients”
One of the first projects will be to develop the world’s best ultra-fast video camera for imaging tissue with greater sensitivity and at higher resolution than any other instrument currently available which the RFI says “will be invaluable in developing new techniques that use sound and light for both detecting and treating disease, including some of the most lethal forms of cancer such as pancreatic and brain tumours, with minimal side effects for patients.”