Our Partnering to Defeat Cancer series of business networking events returned this month, with scientists from The Institute of Cancer Research giving presentations on their work to an audience of industry professionals before a networking reception.
For the first time since the Covid pandemic began, our Business and Innovation Office hosted an in-person event, held at law firm Simmons and Simmons’ headquarters in the City of London. This follows on from pre-pandemic Partnering to Defeat Cancer events in London, Oxford and Cambridge.
The first speaker was the ICR’s Head of Cancer Biology Professor Jon Pines, who gave an overview of our sector-leading work in cancer biology – which recently led to us ranking first in biological sciences in REF2021, the UK’s Government’s assessment of research excellence and impact at UK universities.
Partnering opportunities
Professor Wojciech Niedzwiedz then introduced his work in understanding methods of DNA replication and repair in cancer, and specifically recent research that has shown a key role for a protein called the EXD2 nuclease in DNA replication.
Carsten Schweer, from Merck, then spoke about the ICR’s long-term collaboration with the company including our strategic alliance in cancer drug discovery, which has been focused on discovering inhibitors of multiple different cancer pathways since 2018.
Finally, Business Development Manager Andy Carr told the audience about opportunities to collaborate with the ICR in a range of research areas – from cancer therapeutics to radiotherapy and imaging – as well as the latest from the Innovation Gateway, a new laboratory and collaboration space at The London Cancer Hub in Sutton, South London.
Events at the ICR and The London Cancer Hub
ICR scientists and Business and Innovation Office staff have been involved in several events in recent weeks, including a MedCity-hosted event to introduce the life-sciences community to opportunities at the Innovation Gateway and a London Cancer Hub delegation at UKREiiF, a major real estate conference.
We also hosted the Pharmaceutical Licensing Group’s summer meeting with a series of talks from figures from the pharma and biotech sectors and our own Business and Innovation Office staff, followed by a drinks reception.
Andy Carr, Business Development Manager at the ICR, said:
“It was a pleasure to restart our Partnering to Defeat Cancer series after a hiatus imposed by the Covid pandemic – and it was great to see some old and some new faces. It can be easier to have creative conversations or chance meetings at in-person events than online – and we hope the conversations started between our academics and our current and potential future partners might lead to some fruitful collaborations in future.”