Cancer Research Horizons, the innovation engine of Cancer Research UK, is renewing its partnership with the University of Edinburgh’s Venture Builder Incubator.

The organisation, through its Entrepreneurial Programmes, will sponsor ten places for cancer-related research projects from across the UK to take part on the 16-week programme to drive academic entrepreneurship by supporting PhD students and early career researchers to develop their business ideas, build their skills and secure funding.

It is being delivered by the Bayes Centre, the University of Edinburgh’s innovation hub for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, on behalf of the university’s five Data-Driven Innovation Hubs and Edinburgh Innovations.

The incubator will begin later this year and build on the success of the previous cohorts, which have attracted £1.8 million in funding in the last 12 months.

In 2021, the first year of the Cancer Research Horizons collaboration, eight companies operating in the field of cancer were selected as startups for the incubator.

For the second year running, Cancer Research Horizons’ continued support for PhD students and researchers will play an important role in accelerating the commercialisation of ideas aimed at fighting cancer.

Laura Bernal, Venture Builder Incubator Programme Manager at Edinburgh University, commented: “We are delighted to be partnering with Cancer Research Horizons again this year.

“Our Incubator programme is designed to help fledgling entrepreneurs across all sectors of business build their skills and take their businesses to the next level and through continuing to build our relationship with the brilliant team at Cancer Research Horizons, we can ensure that we are supporting the commercialisation of vital research across 10 cancer-related projects this year.”

The Venture Builder Incubator is designed to help fledgling entrepreneurs across all sectors build their skills and take their businesses to the next level.

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Startups are chosen after an application process which is open to PhD students, early career researchers and academic staff from the University of Edinburgh or Heriot-Watt University, as well as early career researchers focused on cancer-related projects from across the UK.

Each startup is provided with £2,000 as well as business support through a series of workshops, networking events, mentoring, peer-to-peer learnings and access to the University of Edinburgh’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and its data expertise.

Previous oncology-related ventures focused on areas such as developing early diagnosis tools and less invasive testing to enable improved outcomes for people affected by cancer.

Dr Alessia Errico, Associate Director of Search and Evaluation, and Entrepreneurial Programmes Lead at Cancer Research Horizon, said: “We want to inspire the next generation of scientific entrepreneurs in the field of cancer research as well as inspiring cultural change within the industry, so working alongside Edinburgh University and their Data Driven Innovation programme provides us with the perfect platform to do this.

“Supporting entrepreneurs on the journey from an ideation to venture creation is one of the most important things that we can do, so we are excited about what this next year will bring.”

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