The industrial research centre (IRC) for functional RNA delivery, Formulaex, is an eight-year agreement between Chalmers University of Technology, University of Gothenburg, Karolinska Institutet, company partners and the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF).
The purpose is to carry out research and innovation to contribute fundamental knowledge required to succeed in the development of next generation nucleotide-based drug delivery. All partners, with AstraZeneca acting as the leading company partner, jointly invest resources in the Formulaex centre in order to carry out research projects along a common plan identified based on critical bottlenecks in the present understanding of drug formulation and the delivery process. The Formulaex centre is administered and hosted by Chalmers, Department of Physics. To date, four companies (AstraZeneca, Camurus, Vironova, and Nanolyze) collaborate with the academic partners through Formulaex centre in six interconnected research projects.
The vision of the Formulaex centre is to contribute fundamental knowledge required for the design of safe and efficient nanoscale drug-delivery vehicles for next generation nucleotide drugs, which function by reprogramming the genetic code of cells, rather than acting directly at the functional protein machinery as today’s drugs. The multidisciplinary approach taken involve expertise in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine and pharma and the knowledge and innovation generated aim and contributing significantly to Swedish competitiveness in this segment of research and development.
The mission of the Formulaex centre is to bring fundamental scientific advances aimed for future drug-delivery formulations and analytical tools faster to industrial exploitation.
The centre is partly funded by SSF, aimed at stimulating long-term collaborative research between industry and academia, with the long-term objective to promote sustainable growth effects in Sweden by fostering innovation and new enabling technologies and emerging technology shifts.
The Formulaex centre was granted by SSF in 2017 after a national competition. In strong competition SSF granted four centers with up to 100 million SEK each. The predecessor of the Formulaex centre was the Linnaeus SUPRA Centre (2008-2018) and substantial support to the principal investigators at Chalmers from three Areas of Advance: Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Material Science and Health Engineering.
Organisation
IRC Board
- Anders Holmén, AstraZeneca (Chair)
- Markus Johnsson, Camurus
- Gaurav Goyal, Nanolyze
- Fredrik Höök, Chalmers University of Technology
Scientific Advisory Board
- David R. Walt, Wyss Institute, Harvard Univ., USA
- Robert S. Langer, Langer Lab, MIT, USA
- Maria Jesus Vicent Docón, Polymer Therapeutics Lab, Spain
- Joachim Rädler, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), Germany
- Kathryn Whitehead, Carnegie Mellon Univ., USA
Academic Steering Committee
- Fredrik Höök, Chalmers University of Technology
- Elin Esbjörner, Chalmers University of Technology
- Marcus Wilhelmsson, Chalmers University of Technology
- Margaret Holme, Chalmers University of Technology
- Hadi Valadi, University of Gothenburg
- Molly Stevens, Karolinska Institutet
- Samir El-Andaloussi, Karolinska Institutet
Centre support
- Kristina Friis, AstraZeneca
- Bo Norrman, Chalmers University of Technology
- Henrik Mindedal, Chalmers Industriteknik