The ICR works with industry to commercialise its discoveries as the fastest way of taking new drugs and technologies to patients, and ploughs income earned back into its research so further patients can benefit.

We are the most successful academic institution in the world at discovering new cancer drugs – discovering 20 new targeted cancer drugs, and taking 11 new drugs into clinical trials, since 2005 alone.

Abiraterone, kinase inhibitors and Hsp90 inhibitors are examples of the ICR's success at drug discovery, and the importance of our partnerships with industry in taking drugs into trials.

In the 2012/13 academic year the ICR received more than £10 million in invention income – an average of more than £19,000 per academic staff member.

Invention income

An analysis using figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency ranks the ICR first in the UK, followed by the University of Belfast, the University of Cambridge, Aston University and Oxford Brookes University, for size-adjusted income. We also ranked second for absolute levels of invention income, behind only the much larger University of Cambridge.

The ICR’s invention income per $1,000 of research spend would place it in the top 10 of US universities for which figures are publicly available – ranking above some of the world’s leading universities including Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.