BioNTech announced that its subsidiary BioNTech UK Ltd. signed a grant agreement with the UK Government to broaden the company’s R&D activities for innovative medicines in the UK. And as part of the agreement, BioNTech is committed to investing up to £1 billion over the next 10 years.
The company’s efforts will be supported by a grant of up to £129 million for a period of 10 years from the UK Government. This grant marks one of the largest in UK history for a pharmaceutical company. This grant is part of the UK government’s mission to enhance its life sciences sector and support innovative companies, with the aim of unlocking progress in medical science.
This grant agreement builds on a multi-year collaboration with the UK government announced in January 2023. This deal is focused on three pillars:
1.) Accelerating clinical trials for product candidates of BioNTech’s oncology pipeline
2.) Investments into expanding BioNTech’s R&D footprint in the UK as one of the Company’s key markets, and
3.) Research into certain areas including structural biology, regenerative medicine, and infectious disease vaccines.
BioNTech plans on using the grant to support its establishment of two new R&D centers, the first of which will be based in Cambridge and a second of which is currently being planned.
The Cambridge R&D center will be focused on genomics, oncology, structural biology, and regenerative medicine, with capacity for more than 90 highly skilled scientists, including BioNTech’s existing scientists and researchers working in the UK. And BioNTech will strengthen its footprint by establishing its UK headquarters in London, which will bring together the Company’s London-based teams and create new jobs in global and regional supporting functions in the UK over the next 10 years.
BioNTech’s London office will also accommodate the company’s AI hub led by its wholly owned subsidiary InstaDeep, a leading global technology company in the field of AI and machine learning. BioNTech’s AI Hub plays a vital role in the Company’s research capabilities helping to advance AI-powered medical research.
These efforts are part of BioNTech’s strategy to advance research and development of innovative cancer immunotherapies aimed at bringing multiple cancer treatments to the market by 2030, if successfully developed and approved. And as of today, several hundred patients have gained access to investigational mRNA-based cancer immunotherapies in the UK through the collaboration as part of BioNTech’s global clinical trial programs.
