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A major £15.9m initiative from the Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust and Innovate UK will accelerate the development of next-generation human in vitro disease models, expanding their availability across UK academia and industry. The programme aims to deliver advanced, specific and highly reproducible systems that improve the way scientists test potential medicines before they reach clinical trials.
Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) will support four funded academic projects, helping researchers create, validate and adopt models that better reflect human biology. More predictive preclinical tools can enable smarter, earlier decision-making in drug discovery, ultimately reducing attrition, improving patient safety and increasing the success of clinical translation. They also offer viable alternatives to animal models, which—while still important—do not always capture the full complexity of human disease.
The funded projects include:
• University of Leicester – validating living tumour samples as an alternative platform for testing cancer therapies.
• Hull York Medical School / University of Hull – developing artificial blood vessels to improve modelling of clot-related diseases.
• University of Oxford – using human stem cells to build more accurate pain models for analgesic research.
• University of Nottingham – creating a multi-organ model of MASLD to advance understanding and treatment of metabolic liver disease.
Together, these efforts contribute to a national toolkit of human-based methods designed to strengthen early drug discovery. Funding is delivered in partnership with the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs).
Dr Martin Main, Chief Scientific Officer at MDC, said: “We are proud to collaborate with leading academics to help redefine how new medicines are discovered. By generating more predictive insights, we can accelerate progress towards safer, more effective treatments.”
