Centre for the Advancement of Sustainable Medical Innovation


The Collaboration for the Advancement of Sustainable Medical Innovation is hosted by University College London and is committed to understanding and developing better and more sustainable means of effecting medical innovation. It aims to address the issues that have led to current failures in the translation of basic bioscience into affordable and widely adopted new treatments.
Historically, CASMI, then known as the 'Centre for the Advancement of Sustainable Medical Innovation', was founded by the inaugural Director, Professor Richard Barker, and was coordinated both by Oxford University and University College London. In 2018, it was agreed with Oxford that for CASMI to improve the productivity, speed and sustainability of the medical innovation system is a multidisciplinary, inter-institutional and multi-sectoral endeavour demanding effective collaboration, best served by a single coordinating governance arrangement. Thus, UCL took on the mantle to lead CASMI and slightly changed the wording in the title from 'Centre' to 'Collaboration'. Close collaborative links between the founding partners persisted, whilst new alliances are forged.

Leadership

– Chair

Richard Barker – Founder

Fellows

Oxford Fellows

Professor Houman Ashrafian

Professor Chas Bountra

Professor Sir Rory Collins

Professor Kay Davies

Professor Sue Dopson

Professor Andrew Farmer

Professor Adrian Hill

Professor Stephen MacMahon

Professor Robyn Norton

Professor Michael Parker

Professor Len Seymour

Professor Hugh Watkins

UCL Fellows

Professor Nick Freemantle

Professor Dame Hazel Genn

Professor Aroon Hingorani

Professor Robert Horne

Professor Alun Hughes

Professor Philip Luthert

Professor Quentin Pankhurst

Professor Rosalind Raine

Professor David Taylor

Professor Bryan Williams

Professor Martin Utley

Projects

Adaptive licensing

CASMI is leading an evaluation of whether the UK would be a suitable test site for a potential adaptive licensing pilot through the European Medicines Agency. This was recently announced in the government's ‘Strategy for UK Life Sciences: One Year On’ report. The project was initiated by a workshop held at the Wellcome Trust on 2 April 2012.

Stratified medicine

CASMI is developing recommendations on how the regulatory environment and pharmaceutical R&D process should be adapted to the needs of stratified medicine and companion diagnostics.

Regulation of cell therapy

CASMI, supported by the Technology Strategy Board, is investigating current and anticipated regulatory obstacles to the successful commercialisation of cell-based therapies, seeking to integrate the opinion of key stakeholders to support the development of a sustainable and globally competitive UK cell therapy industry.

Partners


Technology Strategy Board

University of Oxford

UCL

Wellcome Trust

Recent publications

Adaptive drug development and licensing, Richard Barker & Sarah Garner, Regulatory Rapporteur. Oct 2012

A flexible blueprint for the future of drug development, Richard Barker, Lancet. Jan 2010