UK Global Partnerships Programme

The Global Partnerships Programme is an initiative sponsored by the UK Government to create partnerships between the world’s most innovative technology-led organisations and their UK peers. It can help overseas organisations of any size to find partners, especially if the organisation:

• Has a highly innovative technology or product
• Is offering significant value-add to potential UK partners
• Is creating a partnership leading to technology transfer

As the UK Trade & Investment Global Partnerships Programme reaches its second anniversary, it is celebrating the success of a diverse range of technology partnerships between UK and overseas companies. Twenty partnerships have been created to date with a number of others in late stage discussions.

Global Partnerships Programme – Case Study

Through the programme, the details of three potential partners were delivered to a small innovative biotechnology company based at a University in the US. The company specialise in recombinant peptides/proteins research, with a focus on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The company was the first in the world manufacturing and selling recombinant Beta-Amyloid peptides, used in Alzheimer's research. This was made possible by their platform vector technology which enabled the expression of historically difficult peptides/proteins as soluble peptides/proteins in E.coli.

The company sought research and development partners with whom they could co-develop new products and services to complement their present product and service range, within the area of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Last year, one of the three UK organisations put forward by the Global Partnerships Programme formed a partnership with the US company to carry out joint R&D on a protein they were developing.

More information

Matthew Delany
Senior Market Adviser
UK Trade & Investment

Matthew.Delany@fco.gov.uk

Tel: +45 35 26 63 75

Further Sources of Information

The Biopartner UK Internet site profiles UK companies and research organisations who have indicated that they are potentially interested in entering into collaborative arrangements with partners overseas.

www.biopartneruk.com

UKTI’s Global Partnerships Programme is detailed on this website together with information on accessing help and assistance.

www.invest.uk.com/investor_services/global.cfm