Wellcome Trust awards first of its Seeding Drug Discovery grants

UK-based medical research charity the Wellcome Trust says that it has made the first awards under its L91.0 million ($179.0 million) Seeding Drug Discovery Initiative, which was established in early 2005 to support the initial, often high-risk, stages of innovative drug development.

Oxfordshire, UK-based biotechnology company Prolysis was the first recipient of funding, which will be used to support its development of next-generation antibacterial drugs against life-threatening infections, including the hospital-acquired "superbug," methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

ProXara, a biotechnology spin-out from the University of Bristol in the UK, also received a grant. The company, which was founded by Jeremy Tavare and colleagues from the university, is focused on the development of compounds that disrupt various biochemical pathways involved in cancer development.