Funding supports high-growth spinout founded by Victoria Cowling November 6, 2020 A spinout project from GRE with the potential to deliver significant healthcare benefits has received funding from Scottish Enterprise to support their development. RNACapRx, driven by Professor Victoria Cowling and colleagues at the Drug Discovery Unit, will build on Dundee’s established drug discovery infrastructure to develop small molecule inhibitors targeting a family of enzymes known to play a role in diseases such as cancer, inflammatory diseases and neurodegenerative conditions. RNACapRx’s lead programme is focused on a subset of cancers and, ultimately, the team will deliver candidate drugs with potential applications in a number of diseases. A total of three University spinouts shared more than £250,000 from Scottish Enterprise. Softech received funding via Scottish Enterprise’s in-year High Growth Spin-out Programme (HGSP) while RNACapRx and Data Driven Health Solutions received support as part of an additional funding package for innovative early stage businesses whose routes to investment and growth have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Anne Muir, Head of IP and Commercialisation at Dundee, said, “The University of Dundee continues to excel in translating its innovative, world-class research into commercial outputs with the potential to impact on health globally. These awards show the breadth of opportunities coming from our scientists, from med tech to therapeutics to AI. We have a venture pipeline that is growing despite the pandemic and it’s exciting to see new companies start to form which will then significantly impact on the local economy.”
