Today, LifeArc provides intellectual property identification, protection and commercialisation, technology development, diagnostic development, early stage drug discovery and antibody humanization services for the MRC, academia, biotechnology and pharmaceutical organisations and charities, aiming to move promising medical research forward into viable and accessible patient treatments. Profits from LifeArc's activities are reinvested into further research.
LifeArc uses funds from royalty payments to provide grants into rare disease research and allocates seed funding to UK companies.
History
LifeArc started as the Medical Research Council Liaison Office in 1984, and in 1986 the MRC Collaborative Centre, a laboratory-based technology transfer function, was founded. In 1993, the Liaison Office became MRC's Technology Transfer Group, responsible for office based patenting and licensing.
The organisation was set up as a charity and a company limited by guarantee in 2000 to incorporate patenting, licensing and research functions.[3]
In 2010, LifeArc signed a deal with the drug company AstraZeneca to share chemical compounds to help identify potential treatments for serious diseases.[5][6]
LifeArc is a member of a Global Drug Discovery Alliance along with the Centre for Drug Research and Development, the Scripps Research Institute, Cancer Research Technology, the Lead Discovery Centre and the Centre for Drug Design and Discovery, dedicated to translating health research into new medicines and working together to improve the conversion of global early-stage research into much-needed new therapies.[7] Through its earnings from licensing agreements, LifeArc provides funding for academic research and early-stage medical research.[8]
In March 2019, LifeArc joined with Cancer Research UK and Ono Pharma to progress new immunotherapy drug targets for cancer.[9]
In May 2019, LifeArc announced it had sold part of its royalty rights for Keytruda to a subsidiary of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) for US$1.297 billion, making it one of the biggest UK medical charities by size of investment.[10]
In 2021, LifeArc launched a new strategy and a commitment to invest up to £1.3 billion by 2030 in life science research.[11] At the same time, the charity announced a new approach for treating Alzheimer's disease, a result of a partnership with the Universities of Leicester and Göttingen.[12]
Key achievements
Over 400 commercial licences signed
Helped launch 12 drugs on the market
Helped form 18 start ups
Generated over £600 million in revenues for the MRC
^Mark Wigglesworth, Terry Wood, eds, Management of Chemical and Biological Samples for Screening Applications, 2012, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN3527645276, 9783527645275, google books
