Oxford Drug Design set to help advance new treatments for CF lung infections

Oxford Drug Design, a biotech company using AI to advance novel therapeutics, has been awarded £466,000 of a £3 million fund to help identify a new therapy for the treatment of bacterial infections in Cystic Fibrosis (CF) sufferers.

The £3m Collaborative Discovery Programme (CDP) announced by the Cystic Fibrosis Antimicrobial Resistance (CF AMR) Syndicate, is funded by LifeArc - a self-funded, not-for-profit medical research charity.

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The funds will support six early-stage novel antimicrobial projects over two years to accelerate new treatments for lung infections in people with CF.

Dr Paul Finn, chief scientific officer (CSO) at Oxford Drug Design, said the company was very excited.

"We will be expanding our antibacterial discovery efforts into this new area of application, which is of high unmet medical need, and advancing the programme with our proprietary computational and GenAI platform," he said.

Cystic Fibrosis affects more than 162,000 people globally, with 11,000 in the UK. Those with the condition are affected by life-threatening lung infections, which can permanently change lung function and reduce their quality of life.

The 18-month project will be undertaken in collaboration with Professor Jo Fothergill of Liverpool University, building on previous, significant work by Oxford Drug Design in identifying new compounds to treat multi drug-resistant bacterial infections.

These compounds will be used as starting points to develop a treatment optimised specifically for people with CF.

Bicycle Therapeutics and BioVersys are also among the first companies to be granted funding from the CDP at this stage.