PhaSER Biomedical secures £2m grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
This article covers PhaSER Biomedical, a biotech startup, which has secured a £2m grant as a two-year renewal to continue providing humanised mouse models aimed at speeding drug discovery for neglected diseases. The funding is intended to widen access to PhaSER’s 8HUM platform and related translational modelling, supporting global health researchers and efforts to improve preclinical prediction for diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, schistosomiasis and Chagas disease.
PhaSER Biomedical, a biotech startup formed in 2022, has secured a £2 million grant funding round — a two-year renewal — to continue providing humanised mouse models aimed at speeding drug discovery for neglected diseases. The money will support wider access to PhaSER’s 8HUM platform and related translational modelling work that could reduce species-related failures in preclinical development.
Why it matters
Drug candidates often fail late in development because mouse metabolism differs from humans. PhaSER’s humanised 8HUM mice are engineered to mirror key human drug-metabolising pathways, which can give earlier, more human-relevant pharmacokinetic and safety signals. For diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, schistosomiasis and Chagas disease — areas that attract limited commercial investment — more predictive preclinical data could lower attrition and accelerate the pipeline of potential treatments.
The grant also preserves a collaborative route for global health researchers to access these models, which matters for equitable R&D: philanthropic funding can underwrite the kinds of early-stage translational work that commercial investors often overlook.
Inside the product
The core asset is the 8HUM transgenic mouse, produced through earlier collaborations involving the University of Dundee, CXR biosciences, Taconic Farms and Scottish Enterprise. 8HUM is humanised for pathways that govern how drugs are metabolised and eliminated, letting teams test how a compound is likely to behave in people rather than relying on mouse-specific metabolism.
PhaSER also described HERALD, an AI-driven drug-drug interaction analyser — Human Exposure and Response Analyser in Linked Drugs — being developed with the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the University of Dundee. HERALD aims to combine data from humanised models with clinical trial and real-world datasets, machine learning and computational modelling to flag adverse interactions for patients taking multiple medicines.
The company says it is expanding its team with computational modelling and AI expertise and has appointed Richard Bickerton, a co-founder of Exscientia, as a non-executive director to help bridge model development, AI and drug-discovery workflows.
Who are the investors?
The renewal is a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and follows a previous Gates award of £1.7 million in 2024. That initial funding supported use of the 8HUM platform across Collaboratory projects in tuberculosis, malaria, schistosomiasis and Chagas disease. Under the Global Health Discovery Collaboratory, Gates grantees worldwide gain access to PhaSER’s humanised models and its capabilities in drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics, bioanalysis, computational modelling and translational study design.
PhaSER says the grant will fund two more years of collaborative studies and model development. The company is also engaging with commercial investors to accelerate further development and wider adoption of 8HUM as a preclinical standard, positioning partnerships and regulatory engagement as part of that commercialisation pathway.
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Roland Wolf, Founder at PhaSER Biomedical, said:
We are really excited about the continuation of this Collaboratory programme. Over the last two years we have seen how the humanised models provide human-relevant data that can rescue promising compounds, de-risk candidates and save valuable drug development time for the treatment diseases that affect millions of people. The renewal lets us build on our significant progress, with new models and capabilities shaped in close collaboration between PhaSER, Gates Foundation grantees and the University of Dundee
In the announcement, Chris Wardhaugh, CEO at PhaSER Biomedical, said:
The continued support from the Gates Foundation will support our work using humanised models in accelerating drug development. What makes the Gates Collaboratory work so well is partnership and we are thrilled to continue working side by side with world-class investigators, and with our colleagues at the Drug Discovery Unit at the University of Dundee, to design the right studies and turn complex data into clear decisions. This is the same philosophy that is proving so fruitful in our partnership with MHRA, involving clinicians, applied mathematicians, data analysts and pharmacokinetic scientists to combine data from our humanised models with clinical trial and real-world data, machine learning and computational modelling - true interdisciplinary teamwork. Human-relevant evidence earlier in development means better choices about which medicines to take forward, and faster progress for the people who need them most.
The bigger picture
The award illustrates how philanthropic capital continues to underwrite translational work for neglected diseases that might not be immediately attractive to commercial investors. It also highlights a trend in UK biotech: closer integration between in vivo humanised models, computational pharmacology and regulatory engagement to improve decision making earlier in development.
PhaSER’s partnerships with the University of Dundee and the MHRA, plus the hire of an Exscientia co-founder to its board, point to growing convergence between AI-led drug discovery and more predictive preclinical models. If 8HUM gains wider adoption, it could influence how both academic and industry groups prioritise candidates before expensive clinical trials.
This renewal reinforces the UK’s role in niche, high-impact translational science and shows how collaborations between universities, regulators, philanthropies and startups can advance treatment development for diseases that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries across Europe and globally.
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