Apply for funding to generate critical preliminary data to build confidence in the development strategy for a new medicine, repurposed medicine, medical device, diagnostic test, or other medical intervention development.

The idea for a new product that can improve human health should have already been conceived and supported by other funding. This should be utilised to produce the critical preliminary data needed to support the onward development of the product.

The Developmental Pathway Gap Fund (DPGF) sits beyond the smaller Impact Accelerator Account (IAA) funding and before the substantive Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme (DPFS) funding.

WHO CAN APPLY

Before applying for funding, check the Eligibility of your organisation.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has introduced new role types for funding opportunities being run on the new UKRI Funding Service.

For full details, visit Eligibility as an individual.

Who is eligible to apply

To be eligible to apply for this funding opportunity you must:

• be a researcher employed by an eligible research organisation
• show that you will direct the project and be actively engaged in the work
• be looking to generate critical preliminary data to build confidence in the development strategy for a new medicine, repurposed medicine, medical device, diagnostic test, or other medical intervention development

If you do not have a contract of employment for the duration of the proposed project, by submitting an application the research organisation is confirming, if it is successful:

• contracts will be extended beyond the end date of the project
• all necessary support for you and the project will be provided, including mentorship and career development for early career researchers

International applicants

You can include international applicants as project co-leads if they provide expertise not available in the UK and make a major intellectual contribution to the design or conduct of the project. You must justify in your application, why their expertise is required, see ‘Applicant and team capability to deliver’ section.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.

We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:

• career breaks
• support for people with caring responsibilities
• flexible working
• alternative working patterns

Find out more about equality, diversity and inclusion at UKRI.

Scope

You can apply for academically led translational projects that aim to undertake a focused package of work that will bridge the gap between the inception of a new idea and substantive funding through schemes such as the MRC Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme to:

• help prevent disease
• help improve speed and accuracy of diagnosis of disease
• develop new treatments for disease
• help to improve outcome monitoring of patients receiving treatment
• help to improve the management of diseases and conditions

All human diseases and medical interventions are eligible for support, both in the context of UK healthcare and addressing global health issues.

Your project should have already explored a new concept and generated some data in support of the approach. Your application should clearly articulate:

• the core concept of the project
• the critical gap that needs to be addressed
• an explanation of how the proposed plan will address this critical gap
• the challenges and issues involved in onward development

This fund will provide small scale funding to generate critical data needed prior to seeking more substantive funding. A non-exhaustive list of examples of the types of projects that could be supported include:

• elements of therapeutic discovery, quantification, and validation
• development of an initial prototype
• early prototype testing
• initial biomarker validation
• vector identification or optimisation
• hit expansion medicinal chemistry

In exceptional circumstances, you can submit follow on proposals where you can justify the need for continued support. However, in most cases a positive outcome of the proposed work should be sufficient to allow submission of a longer and larger application.

For more information on the background of this funding opportunity, go to the ‘Additional information’ section.

Applications from research organisations who are not recipients of an MRC Impact Accelerator Account (IAA) award may use this funding opportunity to apply for more preliminary studies. The scale and scope of the request should reflect a project more in line with the earlier stage. Applicants should highlight within the application that they are applying for an IAA-like project.

Activities we support

You can apply for funding for work on novel:

• new small molecule medicines
• vaccines for infectious or non-infectious disease
• biologics (antibodies, peptides, proteins)
• advanced therapeutics (for example, gene therapy, cell therapy, RNA therapy, nucleic acid therapy and T-cell therapy)
• complex medicines for example PROTACS, molecular glues and antibody-drug conjugates
• regenerative medicine approaches
• repurposing clinical studies or using existing therapies for new indications
• medical devices
• digital healthcare, app development or artificial intelligence
• diagnostics (including biomarker validation)
• medical imaging technology
• surgical techniques or tools
• behavioural and psychological interventions
• radiotherapy and radiation protocols

Activities we do not support

This funding opportunity will not support:

• fundamental or investigative research that is not linked to a product development plan (supported by the MRC science areas)
• clinical studies where the main aim is to investigate disease mechanism (supported by the MRC Experimental Medicine Panel)
• generation of preliminary concept data (supported by the MRC Impact Accelerator Accounts)
• pre-clinical safety of toxicology studies (supported by the MRC Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme)
• early-phase clinical trials (supported by the MRC Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme)
• late-phase clinical trials (supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Efficay and Mechanism Evaluation and NIHR Health Technology Assessment programmes)
• interventions aiming to improve NHS service delivery (supported by NIHR)
• late-phase global health trials (supported by applied global health research board)
• same or similar applications that have previously been rejected by other MRC funding panels in the last 12 months

Duration

The duration of this award is between six and 24 months. Justification of the timescale and resources needed in the context of the proposed work needs to be provided and duration of request should reflect this.

Projects should start one to six months after the funding decision date.

Funding available

The full economic cost (FEC) of your project can be between £50,000 and £300,000.

We will provide funding at 80% of the FEC.

What we will fund

You can request funding for costs such as:

• a contribution to the salary of the project lead and co-leads
• support for other posts such as research and technical staff
• research consumables
• equipment
• travel costs (conference attendance costs are not acceptable for this award )
• data preservation, data sharing and dissemination costs
• estates and indirect costs

You can also request costs for work to be undertaken at international organisations by international project co-leads. We will fund 100% of the FEC.

The total of such costs requested for international applicants from developed countries (those not on the OECD DAC List of ODA Recipients), India and China must not exceed 30% of the total resources requested.

There is no cap on costs requested for international applicants from DAC list countries.

For more information on international costs and what we will and will not fund see costs we fund-overseas and the Collaborate with Researchers in Norway guidance.