CatSci Ltd Win Welsh Government SMART Capital Equipment Grant for Innovative Oligonucleotides Development to Address Previously Unmet Needs
March 4, 2024 – Biotechnology – CatSci, government grants, oligonucleotides
4 March 2024 — Cardiff, Wales — CatSci, an award-winning innovation partner for medicines development, are thrilled to announce that they have won a Welsh Government SMART Capital Equipment Fund grant to enhance their oligonucleotides capability and offer more and better R&D and manufacturing solutions to customers.
The grant will enable CatSci to invest in new cutting-edge equipment that will dramatically increase the rapid creation of a large pool of candidates of RNA/DNA sequences. This is critical for the identification of new therapies to address previously untreatable diseases.
Production of oligonucleotides is currently generally both slow and expensive, meaning the development of new sequences tends to therefore focus on producing small numbers of specific sequences only. These represent a high level of risk due to the high probability of failure. Through this grant, CatSci will develop a novel screening approach, which allows a very large pool of candidates to be screened against the drug target. Not only will this increase the chance of success and reduce the level of risk, but it will also save customers’ time, money and resources. It will also decrease the impact on the environment as there will be significantly less waste in reducing the quantities of reagents and materials.
The SMART Flexible Innovation Support grant was rewarded to support companies in Wales to invest in innovation with the aim of improving people’s lives, growing the economy and addressing the climate and nature emergencies.
The grant from the Welsh government will enable CatSci to create a multitude of high-end jobs in Wales and further cement their position as a vanguard for life-changing RNA medicines to meet the unmet healthcare needs of the world.
Vaughan Gething, Economy minister, said: “Innovation is the tool that has the potential to enrich our education, our economy, our health and wellbeing and our environment. As I recently set out in my priorities for a stronger economy, I want to bolster Wales’s innovation and digital capabilities including in new and rapidly evolving technologies. We want to create and nurture a vibrant innovation culture for a stronger, fairer, greener Wales, so I’m glad we have been able to support these projects, which I believe will drive transformational change.”
The new equipment will enhance CatSci’s state-of-the-art oligonucleotide laboratory, which opened in 2023. The function is led by their director of New Modalities, Dr Nigel Richardson. Nigel holds decades of experience in the oligonucleotides space, having previously led GSK’s oligonucleotide therapy for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy into the final stages of development and regulatory submission. CatSci’s 40+ years of collective experience combined with dedicated analytical support enable them to develop tailored solutions with speed and scientific integrity. They are committed to accelerating the development and manufacturing of life-changing RNA therapeutics, and the Welsh Government SMART grant is just the latest step in their evolution.
About CatSci
CatSci Ltd is an award-winning innovation partner, dedicated to breaking down the silos in drug development to accelerate the delivery of life-changing medicines to patients in need. We proudly serve customers across the globe with projects, meeting their needs from candidate selection to product launch and beyond. Our tailored services include route scouting and selection, initial scale-up and risk management for early development. For later development, we provide process design, assessment and optimisation, scale-up for clinical and commercial manufacture, tech transfer and post-approval improvements. We possess a range of critical enabling technologies including catalysis, material science and pre-formulation, GMP-analytical development, HPAPI development, and oligonucleotides. Agile, commercially minded and scientifically led, CatSci leverages its highly qualified technical team and state-of-the-art facilities to empower our customers to create affordable, best-in-class small molecule therapeutics in a safer, greener and more cost-effective way. Together, we can meet the evolving healthcare needs of the world. Visit: www.catsci.com.
