On the eighth day of Christmas life science gave to me…world class R&D’ing

We’ve created our very own 12 days of Christmas for the life science sector. Via news brands Medical Plastics News, Digital Health Age and European Pharmaceutical Manufacturer we’ll be looking back on 2015 in festive form

On the eighth day of Christmas life science gave to me…

… world class R&D’ing, firms that are a-winning, nicotine a-spraying, the internet of things, an app to help with words, French epi-pens, new robotic gloves and devices for cardiology

Research & development is crucial to the pharmaceutical sector. Redx Pharma opened a £24million immunology R&D centre focused on disorders of the immune system. 

Redx Immunology will sit alongside Redx Oncology and Redx Anti-Infectives, which tackle cancer and infectious diseases respectively. The new subsidiary will operate from laboratories at Alderley Park, Cheshire.

R&D was a key topic for Peter Sheppard, Genpact. He highlighted how R&D needs to build a pipeline that delivers new therapeutic options. He claimed that today’s pharmaceutical companies face mounting pressures across several fronts that dictate a need to reimagine business models and transform operations.  

The future for R&D looked interesting as Paul Denny-Gouldson, VP Strategic Solutions at IDBS, explored what it holds for drug discovery laboratories.

A team of researchers at the University of Manchester published findings on 'Eve' – an artificially-intelligent ‘robot scientist’ capable of screening potential drugs almost completely independently. Meanwhile, IBM’s artificially intelligent (AI) Watson system is seeing take-up among pharmaceutical companies.

As the technology continues and the laboratory becomes more automated, these types of systems will increasingly pool knowledge and data together to discover links – between otherwise seemingly unconnected observations. This couldn’t be timelier, with research and development (R&D) teams under intense pressure to develop new products faster and cheaper.