Overview
Collaborating with companies from concept to commercialisation to enhance the wider health of the population.
The Centre for Food & Drug Discovery (CFDD) is a £22m project based in Coleraine as part of the growth deal partnership with Causeway Coast & Glens. The centre will be a ‘one-stop shop’ for drug discovery and food innovation, partnering with industry to accelerate innovation from early-stage ideas to market ready solutions to improve population health.
Building upon the university’s world class research capabilities and established track record in the area of Biomedical Sciences the centre will significantly expand our research and innovation capacity.
The centre will deliver groundbreaking collaborative innovation, develop a skills pipeline of talent to support the industry and position the Causeway Cost and Glens region as a hub to attract further investment.
The Challenge
Accelerate innovation, and deliver scalable solutions to strengthen the region’s food and drug discovery industries.
Northern Ireland’s food and pharma sectors are cornerstones of the regional economy, yet faces mounting challenges in sustainability, innovation, and health impact. Despite being the largest employer and a major contributor to manufacturing turnover, its economic influence is declining. At the same time, the region is striving to transform its food system through a cross-government strategy that demands integrated, research-led solutions.
Both the food and pharmaceutical sectors share a synergy and focus on future trends and need to identify novel active compounds. For the food industry, the focus is on new bioactives for functional food products that have health benefits, and food supplements as a whole. For the pharmaceutical industry, focus is on identification of new lead molecules (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs)) for drug development.
The CFDD is essential to address this challenge, bringing together expertise across agri-food, health, life sciences, and technology to drive innovation, support sustainability goals, and ensure the sector remains competitive, resilient, and responsive to the public’s needs.
Partnerships
Powering innovation through strategic partnerships between industry and academia.
Working in synergy with ongoing City and Growth Deals, particularly across the Northwest corridor, the centre will help unlock innovation and boost the Causeway Coast & Glens as a destination for growth.
The centre will advance innovation driven by industry in response to the identified strategic needs of the life and health sciences sector and in collaboration with key stakeholders and partners, including clinicians and researchers.
Extensive engagement with industry has helped shape the strategic direction of the centre to ensure the infrastructure supports their commercial outputs, and ultimately increases reinvestment and sustainability of the centre. A stellar Industry Advisory Board has been recruited consisting of leading national and international industry experts to provide strategic guidance and insights.
The CFDD also underpins the Personalised Medicine Centre (PMC) in Derry~Londonderry, a collaborative hub driving innovation in healthcare by addressing key sector challenges and accelerating research and development in personalised medicine. Through an integrated ecosystem that supports scientific, clinical, and commercial advancement, it aims to reduce the time, cost, and risk associated with developing tailored treatments. It facilitates greater community access to personalised care, improves health outcomes, and fosters sustainable growth in the Life Sciences and Healthcare sectors. By nurturing a cluster-based ecosystem, the PMC also enhances the region’s attractiveness for foreign direct investment, delivering long-term economic benefits.
Research
Advancing health through translational research and innovation.
The CFDD will accelerate the development, rigorous testing and market introduction of effective drugs and functional foods to bring forward solutions, treatments, products and technologies that enhance the wider health of the population. It will provide a welcome platform to support continued innovation, with particular emphasis on leveraging the health-promoting properties of various natural food substances to create novel therapeutic agents.
State of the art equipment will futureproof the university’s capacity to fully seed, support and nurture pipelines of basic and translational research with national and international partners. The centre will accommodate a bespoke Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) toxicology unit, one of only two on the island of Ireland, positioning CFDD as the pre-clinical partner of choice.
An industrial engagement fund will be open to businesses of all sizes as a financial support to boost collaborative research between industry and academia.
Impact
Shaping healthier futures through breakthrough research and transformative collaboration.
Professor Victor Gault, Associate Dean Research and Innovation, Life and Health Sciences and Senior Responsible Officer for Centre for Food and Drug Discovery said
“With an established track record, we are building upon our world class research capabilities to supercharge companies competitiveness and economic impact. Our vision is for the Causeway Coast and Glens to be one of the best places nationally and internationally for drug discovery, food and pharmaceutical health innovation, contributing to a substantial increase in economic growth and productivity, while providing a significant increase in the food and pharma innovation skills base in the NI workforce.”
- Establish Causeway Coast & Glens area as a leading location for innovative food and pharmaceutical research, enabling companies in these areas to improve their productivity and competitiveness.
- Create a platform for enhanced partnerships by upgrading facilities to improve food/pharma innovation allowing micro, SME and large companies to engage at any, and all key stages of the research and innovation pipeline.
- Improve translational research (TRL) with a business-to-business facing centre enabling greater engagement by industry, at an earlier stage along the TRL pathway than is currently possible.
- Improve the health and wellbeing of people in NI and beyond through access to better nutritional and pharmaceutical products.
