As a charity, we want to ensure that promising science is developed and can make a difference to patients’ lives. To achieve this we have invested heavily in our drug discovery and diagnostics development centres.

Through our Call for Targets programme we are looking to support and develop promising new therapeutic targets. By collaborating with our drug discovery labs you gain access to the expertise, facilities and resources needed to develop your research in a commercial environment. We have a long history of developing therapeutic molecules and our work has contributed to four antibody drugs that have reached the market and are currently treating patients.

We are now offering £100,000 translational awards to the laboratory of each successful Principal Investigator (PI) to fund the further development of novel small molecule or therapeutic antibody drug targets. We review proposals in a two-stage application process and projects are selected by a panel of drug discovery experts. LifeArc Translational Awards will be made after the successful review of the project and diligence in our drug discovery labs.

The next first-stage application deadlines are:
12 September
14 November

What we’re looking for

We are looking for projects that show:

  • Novel therapeutic targets in any disease area with a current unmet medical need
  • New approaches to modulating a known disease target
  • Targets that are amenable to a small molecule or antibody therapeutic approach, for example receptors, secreted proteins, enzymes and ion channels
  • Strong evidence linking the target to human disease, for example genetic or expression data
  • Evidence from cellular or animal model systems showing that modulation of the target has a therapeutically relevant effect
  • Disease biology expertise from the collaborating academics, such as access to enabling assays, reagents and disease models

Read about our application process

Find out more and apply

If you are interested in finding out more about our Call for Targets programme and the LifeArc Translational Award, please get in touch with Kevin Buchan, Derek Sheader or Meera Swami on +44 (0) 207 391 2826