Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing: Expression of interest

To lead a project or work alone your organisation must be a UK registered:

• business of any size
• research and technology organisation (RTO)
• catapult centre
• public sector organisation

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be a UK registered:

• business of any size
• academic institution
• charity
• not-for-profit
• public sector organisation
• research and technology organisation (RTO)
• catapult centre

At the EoI phase you may apply as a single applicant or collaboration but you are not required to have a fully formed consortia. Full Grand Challenge projects will require at least three organisations from across the supply chain (where appropriate) interested in forming a network. For collaborations, the organisations do not need to have worked together before and can develop their relationship during this EoI phase.

For the EoI phase, an eligible organisation can lead on more than one application and can be included as a collaborator in any number of applications.

Your consortium will be required to demonstrate how they will comprise a supply chain (where appropriate) capable of delivering and exploiting the Grand Challenge objectives.

The organisations in your project, as well as the relationships and their roles in the consortium, can change between the EoI phase and Grand Challenge phases.

Funding for this EoI phase must be used to support the collaborative development of your application for the Grand Challenge phase.

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request up to £100,000
• last between three and six months
• carry out its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• start by 1 January 2025
• end by 30 June 2025

Your total project costs will be up to 100% funded. The total project costs and grant funding request detailed within your application must match and must not exceed the maximum project size of £100,000. If your total project costs or grant funding request exceed the maximum then your application will be made ineligible.

Expression of interest phase (EoI)

Funding for this EoI phase must be used to support the collaborative development of your application for the Grand Challenge phase.

This includes:

• building a consortium
• convening discussions
• hosting workshops
• engaging communities
• collaborative bid writing
• desk research
• coordination of the consortium
• developing mechanisms to gather impact and benefits data which will be required at the Grand Challenge phase

This list is not exhaustive.

Further details on the impacts and benefits data for the Grand Challenge phase will be shared with applicants who are successful in this EoI phase.

The Grand Challenge phase

Consortia awarded funding at the EoI phase will be invited to apply for the Grand Challenge phase competition, which will open in, or after, June 2025. Further details about the application timeline and requirements for this phase will be released in due course.

Grand Challenge phase funding must be used to invest in the capacity and capability of the consortia to deliver across four key goals:

• drive disruptive and novel technologies or processes in medicines manufacturing to optimise production efficiency, minimise waste and reduce emissions, aligning with global sustainability goals
• facilitate the effective implementation of innovative solutions and promote their adoption across the medicines manufacturing sector, ensuring scalability and widespread utilisation
• enhance the UK’s attractiveness as a prime location for investment in medicines manufacturing, thereby stimulating economic growth and enhancing resilience in the sector
• strengthen the UK’s manufacturing innovation ecosystem through collaborative partnerships between academia, industry, and government entities, promoting knowledge exchange and collaborative initiatives to enhance sustainable manufacturing practices

The aim of this competition is to provide seed funding to establish a consortium and prepare a case for a later, full sustainable medicine manufacturing themed Grand Challenge award. A Grand Challenge is a large-scale collaborative research and development (CR&D) award, up to £10 million, involving at least three partners across the medicines manufacturing supply chain, where appropriate.

In the Grand Challenge phase we aim to support organisations with the potential to innovate and develop technologies for sustainable medicines manufacturing. Your project must address at least one of these three key pillars:

• green chemistry
• circularity
• productivity and resource

Your project must also address both critical enablers:

• regulations
• measurements, standards and data

Your Grand Challenge project must demonstrate measurable improvements which lead to more sustainable processes, in at least one of the following areas:

• productivity
• waste reduction
• emissions reduction
• energy use reduction
• resource efficiency

We welcome proposals from collaborations across different sectors.

Your Grand Challenge project must focus on at least one pillar and address both enablers:

Pillar 1. Green chemistry:

• biocatalysis, new chemocatalysis
• flow chemistry
• solvent free systems
• sustainable solvents
• biomanufacturing for active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), plastics and biopolymers
• technology switches away from solid phase synthesis

Pillar 2. Circularity

• recycle and reuse of materials, for example, solvents, water, plastics, packaging
• identify materials with potential for circularity

Pillar 3. Productivity and resource efficiency

• continuous processing​
• process intensification
• digital processing, digitalisation, automation or robotics. ​
• utilise shared data to enable use of artificial intelligence and machine learning
• analyse waste in the supply chain
• streamline development processes​
• reduction of energy use
• increasing yield, productivity and efficiencies

These are examples of specific themes sitting within each of the pillars however this is not an exhaustive list and proposals do not have to be restricted to these.

Skills and training can be considered alongside any of the three pillars.

Enabler 1. Measurements, data and standards

• align with emerging approaches, for example, life cycle analysis (LCA), carbon footprint reporting and demonstrating efficiency in resource efficiency and reduced emissions

Enabler 2. Regulations

• identify regulatory challenges and propose solution

These are examples of specific themes sitting within each of the enablers, however this is not an exhaustive list and proposals do not have to be restricted to these.

We encourage proposals that align with national innovation and policy priorities, such as those set out in:

• the Life Sciences Vision
• Greener NHS
• Advanced Manufacturing Plan

For the EoI, we will not fund:

• activity that does not contribute to the development of a proposal for the Grand Challenge phase of the programme
• activity that an existing innovation network was already undertaking or so-called ‘business as usual’
• laboratory based experimental development
• non-human medicines
• medical device manufacturing

For the Grand Challenge we will not fund infrastructure and facility design without appropriate demonstration.

This is not an exhaustive list and further details will follow at the Grand Challenge phase.

A briefing event was held on Thursday 15 August: briefing slides are available to download.

If you would like help to find a collaboration partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Health team.