Medicines are complex products. In addition to the drug (a molecule which causes a pharmacological effect in the body), they also contain a number of other ingredients (excipients). These are added for a variety of reasons (e.g. to ensure stability or to target the drug to a particular part of the body). A very careful assessment is required to prepare a potent and safe medicine. New types of drug molecule are being devised rapidly and have the potential to transform patients' lives. However, there is a long time-lag (10 - 15 years) between the discovery of a new drug and its translation into a medicine. Most of this time is taken up by developing a suitable "formulation" (drug + excipients) and then testing this. There are very significant benefits that would be realised from accelerating the process: this was made clear by the COVID-19 pandemic, in which the rapid development of vaccines led to millions of lives being saved, and is particularly important as society ages and patients live for prolonged periods of time with multiple conditions. The UK traditionally has been a powerhouse for medicines discovery, and the medical technology and pharmaceutical sector is still a vital part of the economy. However, productivity has recently declined, and compared to peer countries the UK has a lack of high-innovation firms. If medicines development can be accelerated in the UK, there will be huge economic and societal benefits, in addition to profound improvements to the lives of individual patients. To realise this ambition, the UK pharmaceutical sector needs highly-trained, doctoral-level, scientists with the skills required to accelerate research programmes in medicines development. The Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Accelerated Medicines Design & Development seeks to meet this user need, by building a cohort of innovators and future leaders. We will do this between two universities and in collaboration with a network of industrial and clinical partners from across the UK pharmaceutical, healthcare and medical technologies sector. Comprehensive science training will enable our students to develop the high-level laboratory and computational skills needed to overcome the major challenges in medicines development. Our alumni will be expert practitioners at integrating lab and digital research, recognised by industry as crucial to accelerate medicines development. Our students will receive extensive transferable skills training, ensuring that they graduate with high-level teamworking, communication, leadership and entrepreneurial skills. We will foster an open and supportive environment in which students can challenge ideas, experiment, and learn from mistakes. Equality, diversity and inclusiveness, sustainability, and responsible innovation will be at the heart of the CDT, and embedded throughout our training. By liaising closely with industry and clinical partners, we will ensure that the research undertaken in the CDT is directly relevant to the most significant current challenges in medicines development. We will further embed interactions with patients to ensure that the products are acceptable to both patients and clinicians. This will allow us to directly contribute to the acceleration of medicines development, and ultimately will deliver major benefits to patients as new products come on to the market. Our graduates will join companies across the pharmaceutical, medical technology and healthcare fields, where they will innovate and drive forward research programmes to accelerate medicines development for a broad range of diseases. They will ensure that new therapies come to market and the health and well-being of individuals across the world is improved. Others will enter academia, training the next generation. Our alumni will seed a future landscape in which medicines are designed and manufactured in a manner which protects our environment, and in which there is equality of opportunity for all.

A drug is a molecule that acts upon biological processes in the body. In contrast, a medicine is a complex product that comprises the drug and other ingredients packaged into a final dosage form that can be administered to a patient to ensure there is a beneficial therapeutic effect with minimum side-effects. To achieve therapeutic effect it is essential to ensure that the drug is delivered to the appropriate site in the body, at the right time, and in the correct amount. This is challenging: some drug molecules are poorly soluble in biological milieu, while others are either not stable or have toxic side-effects and require careful processing into medicines to ensure they remain biologically active and safe. The new drug molecules arising from drug discovery and biotechnology have particularly challenging properties. Pharmaceutical technologies are central to developing medicines from these molecules, to ensure patients are provided with safe and efficacious therapy. The design and development of new medicines is an inherently complex and cross-disciplinary process, and requires both innovative research and highly skilled, imaginative, researchers. To sustain and reinforce the UK's future global competitiveness, a new generation of highly-trained graduates educated at doctoral level is required to deliver transformative new therapeutics. Our CDT will train an empowered network of at least 60 PhD students through a consortium of multiple industry partners led by the University of Nottingham and University College London. The involvement of partners from start-ups to major international pharmaceutical companies will ensure that our students receive the cross-disciplinary scientific knowledge needed to develop future medicines, and build the leadership, resilience and entrepreneurial skills crucial to allow them to function effectively as future leaders and agents of change. Through partnering with industry we will ensure that the research work undertaken in the CDT is of direct relevance to contemporary and future challenges in medicines development. This will allow the CDT research to make significant contributions to the development of new therapies, leading ultimately to transformative medicines to treat patients. Beyond the research undertaken in the CDT, our graduates will build careers across the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector, and will in the future impact society through developing new medicines to improve the health and well-being of individuals across the world. We will train our students in four key science themes: (i) predictive pharmaceutical sciences; (ii) advanced product design; (iii) pharmaceutical process engineering; and, (iv) complex product characterisation. This will ensure our graduates are educated to approach challenges in preparing medicines from a range of therapeutic molecules, including emerging cutting-edge actives (e.g. CRISPR, or locked RNAs). These are currently at a critical stage of development, where research by scientists trained to doctoral level in the latest predictive and product design and development technologies is crucial to realise their clinical potential. Our students will obtain comprehensive training in all aspects of medicines design and development, including pharmaceutical engineering, which will ensure that they consider early the 'end game' of their research and understand how their work in the laboratory can be translated into products which can be manufactured and enter the clinic to treat patients.