The BactiVac Network has received an additional £600,000 of funding from The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF). The aim of the ISCF is to bring together the UK world-leading research with business to meet the major industrial and societal challenges of our time. This is part of the government’s £4.7 billion increase in research and development funding over the next 4 years.

BactiVac’s aim to accelerate the development of bacterial vaccines is strongly aligned to the ‘Accelerating innovative healthcare and medicines’ challenge identified as part of the UK government’s investment in the areas of advanced therapies, medicines and vaccines development and manufacturing.

The additional ISCF funding will allow BactiVac to support a larger portfolio of catalyst projects in the Network’s first year of operation, with priority given to projects that particularly:

  • demonstrate strong industry engagement and/or are industry led
  • focus on the development of a vaccine against bacterial pathogens that are of interest/aligned to UK Health

Outputs from funded catalyst projects will support capacity building and contribute to the ISCF’s target to boost the UK economy, support high-value, highly-skilled manufacturing, and increase productivity. These catalyst pump-priming projects will address key bacterial pathogenic infections that are aligned to UK health priorities.

BactiVac is one of 5 networks that are supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Networks in Vaccines Research & Development, which is co-funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

Dr Martin Broadstock, Programme Manager for Immunology at the MRC, said: “Our goal through the MRC/BBSRC Networks is to accelerate vaccine R&D and the additional ISCF investment will help achieve this by supporting academics and industry partners to work together more closely.”

Professor Cal MacLennan, BactiVac Director welcomed the news of the award, adding that: “this additional government support extends our ability to help advance promising products along the bacterial vaccines pipeline, to the point at which they can be serve their primary purpose of preventing disease and death.”