Quantum Computing in drug discovery receives £6.85m boost
Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC), the Alderley Edge-based independent national centre for innovation in drug discovery, has secured £6.85m funding as part of a consortium, led by Digital Quantum Computing company SEEQC, to utilise quantum computing in drug discovery for the treatment of cancer.
The grant, awarded via Innovate UK’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, will accelerate the use of quantum computing within pharmaceutical research “to dramatically reduce” the time required for drug development on a global scale.
This project is focused on developing high-value simulation tools to support photodynamic therapies for cancer treatment.
Today, useful simulations of photosensitising drugs are not possible with classical computing power alone.
SEEQC’s project will develop an application-specific quantum computer designed to simulate the most classically challenging tasks within this research.
SEEQC will lead the consortium of quantum computing partners for the ISCF QuPharma project with MDC working alongside the project partners including Riverlane, Oxford Instruments, the University of Oxford, and members from the Science and Technology Facilities Council, including the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre.
Dr Rafael Jiminez, Head of Bioinformatics at MDC, said: “Quantum computing presents an exciting frontier for drug discovery and this project enables MDC as part of the Consortium led by SEEQC, working alongside our partners, to be at the very forefront of this innovative technology.
“This collaboration will unlock the ability to create ever more complex simulations, accelerating the process of research and development to a level never before possible, and could have a transformative impact on our ability to treat diseases like cancer.”
Matthew Hutchings, Co-founder, and CPO of SEEQC, said: “Today, drug discovery is a labour and time-intensive iterative process with immense costs.
“Thanks to our world-leading partners and the invaluable commercial benchmarking by our end-customers at Merck, we have the opportunity to develop a quantum computing platform that can radically improve the efficiency of drug development.”
