DUNDEE’S BOOMING life sciences sector has been given new and significant funding.

It is hoped the additional investment will enable CXR Biosciences and their German partners in the project, TaconicArtemis to break open a $3 billion market.

ITI Life Sciences, the publicly funded innovation group, announced yesterday that it will extend its research programme designed to develop new technologies for the pharmaceutical industry to predict the effects of drug compounds in the human body.

The research programme, which has exceeded expectations in delivering new technologies and intellectual assets (know-how and patents), will be extended for up to 14 months and receive a further £2 million in funding from ITI Life Sciences.

The extension has been granted to enable ITI Life Sciences and the programme participants to complete the development and file patents on the additional technologies developed above and beyond those originally targeted.

The three-year transgenic screening and safety models (TSM) programme was initiated by ITI Life Sciences in February 2005 with £5.5 million.

Based on the scientific success so far, CXR Biosciences and TaconicArtemis have signed licences with ITI Life Sciences to allow them to co-commercialise a range of drug screening models and services developed using these new technologies.

The market in which these technologies will compete is estimated at more than $3 billion and significant interest has already been seen from major pharmaceutical companies in Europe and the United States.

ITI Life Sciences is already receiving royalty payments on technology sales and services resulting from available models and expects these payments to increase as the range expands over the duration of the programme extension.

ITI Life Sciences will also seek to commercialise technology and intellectual assets in other areas not covered by the agreements with CXR Biosciences and partner TaconicArtemis.

Dr Tom Shepherd, chief executive of CXR Biosciences, said, “This complex ITI Life Sciences programme has been successful because of the complementary skills of all participants.

“The technologies created from the programme have the potential to make a significant impact on the speed, cost and effectiveness of new drug development.

“Furthermore, from CXR Biosciences’ perspective, our involvement with the ITI programme has directly led to the substantial growth in our business over the past few years, which is great for the local economy.”

Dr Eleanor Mitchell, managing director of ITI Life Sciences, said, “I am extremely pleased at how well the TSM programme has gone.

“Predictive screening models were identified by our analysts as very important to improving the quality of drug candidates entering into human clinical trials.

“Not only has the programme achieved all the technical goals set at the beginning of the programme, it has generated many more commercial opportunities to create real value from these new intellectual assets.”