COVID-19 preclinical drug discovery and development

Explore our live COVID-19 preclinical drug development database

We are calling for new submissions to our live database of ongoing and emerging COVID-19 preclinical drug development research activities. The database is a free, open access resource where researchers can submit their projects, browse other projects, and form new connections.

In addition, this database supports the expansion of the UK Government-funded AGILE clinical trial platform. Along with initiatives such as LifeArc’s COVID-19 Advise & Connect service, it will help novel COVID-19 treatments progress along the development pipeline over the coming years. Launched in the summer of 2020, our database provides a tool to help researchers and funders identify opportunities for collaboration, avoid duplication of effort and prioritise the most promising research.

www.covidpipeline.acmedsci.ac.uk

"The Academy's database maps the landscape of preclinical COVID-19 research in the UK. By submitting their projects to the database, preclinical researchers from academia and industry alike are doing their part to help identify and prioritise important preclinical COVID-19 research, to help build treatments and research tools for a COVID-19-resilient future." -- Professor Michael Malim FRS FMedSci, Expert Group Chair and Professor of Infectious Diseases and Head of School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences, King's College London

The COVID-19 pandemic presents an unprecedented challenge for society, and it is vital that biomedical and health research continues to rise to this challenge to help mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 illness (including ‘long covid’), save lives, and prevent any reoccurrence. The UK’s outstanding life sciences sector will enable it to make a significant contribution to the global research effort to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic through drug discovery research and its intimate alignment with clinical programmes, such as those supported by the Department of Health and Social Care-led COVID-19 Therapeutics Taskforce, and COVID-19 Antivirals Taskforce due to launch in Autumn.

This live database maps the current landscape of COVID-19 preclinical drug discovery and development across the UK and presents a comprehensive overview of preclinical research into developing novel therapeutic targets, new molecular entities, and repurposing existing medicines. From May 2020 to February 2021, 45 projects were submitted to the database by academic institutions, NHS Trusts, and industry, including 15 projects involving academia-industry collaborations. This resource enables researchers and funders to quickly identify similar projects and research endeavours and thus promotes collaboration, team science and data sharing. This could ultimately enhance and accelerate the pre-clinical pipeline for COVID-19 treatments.

A survey of 20 database contributors in January 2021 showed that many projects have progressed since the database was launched. Project outputs include 16 papers published or in pre-print and various collaborative resources, such as the SARS-CoV-2 molecular toolkit service provided by the MRC-University of Dundee Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit, and the COVID-19 Drug-Screening and Resistance Hub (CRUSH) based at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research. 

“We have found the database really useful in the past year to see what other sorts of preclinical COVID-19-related projects were out there. It has really helped when thinking about potential collaborators and project partner organisations.” -- Dr Maria McPhillips, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research.

Promising projects within this database can help to inform ongoing prioritisation programmes such as the UK Government-funded clinical trial study platform, AGILE, which fast-tracks the development of innovative COVID-19 treatments. AGILE is one of a series of clinical trial platforms across all phases of human trials and in a range of patient cohorts prioritised as Urgent Public Health Research by the National Institute for Health Research and supported by the Department of Health and Social Care COVID-19 Therapeutics Taskforce. The new platform is capable of testing multiple potential therapies in parallel and speeding up testing by pooling control data between patient groups.

To help move preclinical COVID-19 projects closer to patients, researchers can also engage with the new Advise & Connect service provided by LifeArc. The Advise & Connect programme is open to early-stage medical research projects that could help tackle the long-term health challenges of COVID-19 and prepare for future viral outbreaks, focusing on four specific areas: drugs, diagnostics, devices and AI/digital health. LifeArc offers free expert advice and guidance, access to a network of industrial, business, and academic partners, and the opportunity to apply for an Innovation Award of up to £20,000 to catapult the translation of COVID-19 pre-clinical projects down the development pipeline.

"As the pandemic matures and we prepare for the future, we look increasingly to preclinical researchers to develop therapies to fight COVID-19 and the SARS-CoV-2 virus in years to come. The database helps researchers and funders avoid duplication of effort and find useful collaborators and initiatives, like the LifeArc Advise & Connect service, to move us towards treatments for COVID-19 together faster." -- Dr Melanie Lee CBE FMedSci, Expert Group Member and Chief Executive Officer, LifeArc

The COVID-19 preclinical drug discovery and development project is being driven by a group of experts with a broad range of research expertise and experience. More details on this group can be found in the 'Expert group' tab.

Scope

The scope for this project includes all aspects of preclinical drug development from target definition, through to hit and lead optimisation and screening, assay development and pharmacokinetic/dynamic testing. This includes all modalities of biological therapies (e.g. small molecules, biologics, RNA-based therapies etc.) and both novel and repurposed therapeutics.

Aims

The project’s overall aims are to:

1. Ensure that ambitious and creative drug development research forms part of the national response to COVID-19.
2. Map ongoing and emerging COVID-19 preclinical drug discovery and development research and make this map freely available to researchers and funders.
3. Highlight the immediate and longer-term research priorities for COVID-19 preclinical drug development, encompassing research questions, infrastructure, and resources.

An expert group has been convened to represent a broad range of virology, drug discovery and translational science expertise. The core coordinating group includes:

• Professor Michael Malim FRS FMedSci, Professor of Infectious Diseases and Head of School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences, King's College London (Chair)
• Professor Wendy Barclay FMedSci, Action Medical Research Professor of Virology, Imperial College London
• Dr David Hughes, Lecturer, University of St Andrews
• Dr Melanie Lee CBE FMedSci, Chief Executive Officer, LifeArc
• Dr Gemma Nixon, Senior Lecturer in Medicinal Chemistry, University of Liverpool
• Professor Massimo Palmarini FMedSci, Director of MRC Centre for Virology Research, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research
• Dr Rab Prinjha FMedSci, VP Head of Adaptive Immunity and Immuno-epigenetics Research Unit, GlaxoSmithKline
• Professor David Stuart FRS FMedSci, MRC Research Professor, University of Oxford