MRC: DPFS, 2018

The MRC's Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme (DPFS) is an ongoing scheme, with outline deadlines every 4 months. It supports the translation of fundamental discoveries toward benefits to human health, funding the pre-clinical development and early clinical testing of novel therapeutics, devices and diagnostics, including “repurposing” of existing therapies.

The scheme supports academically led projects whose goals are to improve prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment of significant health needs, or that focus on developing research tools that increase the efficiency of developing interventions.

The following activities are eligible for support:

• Developing candidate therapeutic entities (e.g. drug discovery)
• Pre-clinical testing of novel therapeutic entities
• Early-phase clinical studies of novel therapeutic entities (phases 1 and 2)
• “Repurposing” clinical studies – using existing therapies for new indications
• Developing and testing novel devices
• Developing and testing diagnostics (including biomarker validation)

All disease areas (including those relevant to global health) and modalities of intervention are eligible for support from the scheme, including small molecules, peptides, antibodies, vaccines, cell and gene therapy, devices, surgical techniques and psychological approaches.

For the full call text please visit the MRC grant call webpage.