OBN BioTuesday at Diamond

CEO of Diamond Andrew Harrison opening the panel discussion

The panel comprised 6 leading experts in the field of biological research:

Professor Dave Stuart, Director of Life Sciences at Diamond Light Source; and Professor of Structural Biology, Nuffield Department of Medicine;
Malcolm Skingle, Director of Academic Liaison at GSK;
Malcolm Weir, CEO of Heptares;
John Barker, Vice President of Structural Biology at Evotec;
Matthew Durdy, CBO of Cell Therapy Catapult;
Simon Simpkins, Head of Manufacturing at Oxford BioMedica.

Discussions on the different national facilities on offer to SME’s, case studies that showed how innovation has been delivered through using these facilities and the pros and cons of outsourcing to facilities took place in this lively and informed discussion forum.

L to R: Dr John Harris, CEO, OBN; Malcolm Weir, CEO, Heptares; Matthew Durdy, CBO, Cell Therapy Catapult; and John Barker, Vice President, Structural Biology, Evotec.

Evotec, a a leader in the discovery and development of novel small molecule drugs are regular users of the facilities that Diamond has to offer. When asked about Evotec’s experience of using Diamond, Vice President of Structural Biology John Barker commented;

“I’m a huge advocate of this facility. It’s a huge selling point to us being close to Diamond, it helps drive forward our business. The UK is very, very strong in structural biology and in order to stay that way, we need to continue investment in facilities such as Diamond.” 

He went on to describe how Diamond had played a crucial role in the company’s drug development process;

“By using the new platforms of fragment based drug design we have identified a handful of targets for our medicinal chemists to begin their development. We simply would have failed to identify these targets if we hadn’t come to Diamond. The speed at which we get results and are able to feedback to our chemists is critical to our drug design process. We get the very best out of our samples by working with the scientists at Diamond."

Heptares, is a clinical-stage company creating novel medicines targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). When asked about his experience of using Diamond, Malcolm Weir from Heptares said;

“We work in a very technically demanding area and we are utterly dependant on Diamond. It is a fantastic facility and very important for UK Science; the quality and innovation, especially in terms of crystallography, is first class”.

Malcolm went on to say “The key is having excellent relationships with people, working on sensible terms, receiving the right support at the right level. Full marks to Diamond.

Further discussions took place around the large capital spend to build and maintain large scale facilities such as Diamond, the difficult decisions of organisations to outsource or perform their development and manufacturing in house, and also the impact that location and funding could have on UK science going forward.

Malcolm Skingle from GSK explained “You want to go for the best technology you can. We are so lucky in the UK to have facilities such Diamond as good kit attracts good scientists and this encourages collaborations”.

Matthew Durdy from Cell Therapy explained the importance of facilities such as Diamond and the Catapult Centres “Nationally based infrastructure is there to take risk. Pooling the risk, making state funded access is the only way to go”.

If you wish to talk to the Industrial Liaison Team about your research requirements, then please contact us on +44 (0)1235 778797 or [email protected] or you can follow us on Twitter @DiamondILO or connect with us on Linkedin.