GSK creates $5 million Innovation Challenge Fund

A $5 million Innovation Challenge Fund (ICF), to encourage and support academic groups and small companies in collaborative efforts in the development of bioelectronic medicines, has been announced by GSK. This funding programme is in addition to the company’s prior commitment of a $1 million award (December 2013), for the team that first solves the GSK Bioelectronics Challenge.

Bioelectronic medicine is focused on producing miniaturised, implantable devices that could be programmed to read and correct electrical signals passing along the nerves of the body, to treat disorders as diverse as inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis, asthma, hypertension and diabetes. The ICF funded work and the Innovation Challenge’s winning entry will be made freely available to the global research community.

These new commitments were announced by GSK at a White House forum to recognise the progress made in President Obama’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative. The forum highlighted the development and application of innovative technologies that can create a dynamic understanding of the brain, with the goal of helping find new ways to treat, cure, and even prevent disease.

 “We see the development of bioelectronic medicines as a collaborative process that will only be successful with the combined skills of world-leading engineers, physiologists, neuroscientists and informatics experts,” said Moncef Slaoui, Chairman of Global R&D and Vaccines at GSK. “Through this fund we’re announcing today and the $1 million Innovation Challenge, we hope to address a critical need for that research community. The technology we target will unlock the next research phase towards a new class of treatments for patients.”

The application period for ICF funding is October and November 2014 and funding will be awarded in two phases to qualified teams, ultimately leading to the selection of up to three teams being awarded up to $1.2 million each by mid-2015. Registration information is available on GSK’s Innovation Challenge portal

In addition to the focus on brain mapping and brain disorders, the US neurotechnology research community has during 2014 made significant commitments to study how nerve signals outside the brain and spine may be altered to treat disease related to our organs. To further those efforts, the National Institutes of Health has announced the $248 million Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions (SPARC) programme and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched the $79 million Electrical Prescriptions (ElectRx) programme. These programmes complement and significantly expand the funding GSK is providing to researchers and entrepreneurs in this emerging field. Together, such peripheral nerve-focused research will build the foundation for the future bioelectronic medicines GSK is working to deliver to patients.