Biomanufacturing Fund (BMF): Phasephase 2 (closedopen to applications)expressions of interest

The Biomanufacturing Fund (BMF) will provide up to £38 million in capital grants to incentivise investment in the manufacture of vaccines and biotherapeutics, to improve the UK’s health resilience for future pandemics.

Background

Phase and1 objectives of the programme

The BMF follows on from the £60 million Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund and the £20 million Medicines and Diagnostics Manufacturing Transformation Fund.

Specific themes

We particularly welcome applications for the manufacture of:

• drug substance (for example active pharmaceutical ingredient (API)
• finished drug product (for example fill/finish)
• component materials (such as starting materials, delivery systems, adjuvants)

for the following product categories:

• vaccines: all vaccine modalities
• biotherapeutics: including monoclonal antibodies and cell-and-gene therapies

This list is not exhaustive.

Eligibility

This is a summary of the minimum requirements for ‘in scope’ projects (read the scheme guidance for full details).

Your manufacturing investment must relate to the manufacture of:

Human medicines (this includes both the manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) / drug substance and finished product / drug product). The fund is open to applications across the breadth of types of MHRA licenced medicines for human use.

We will not accept applications that propose to manufacture:

• veterinary medicines
• herbal medicines and vitamins
• consumables or equipment (such as vials or syringes)

Your project must:

• be a manufacturing project: this could be manufacturing product for clinical trials or for commercial sale
• be located in the UK
• have a total investment value of more than £12 million

You will be required to:

• demonstrate that your company has the financial capacity to deliver the project
• demonstrate that the project is fully funded aside from the grant request
• provide the most recent 3 years of annual audited accounts for your company and parent company, as available. If you have fewer than 3 years of annual audited accounts, your application may still be considered

To protect public funding, you must:

• provide a parental undertaking guarantee from your ultimate parent company
  or
  
• secure and pay for a bank guarantee for the full grant amount over the duration of the project

Fund objectives

We will prioritise applicants based on their alignment to the fund’s objectives:

1. Increasing health resilience in the UK for future pandemics through increased domestic capacity, or by providing flexible capabilities that have the ability to be re-deployed;

2. Creating economic opportunity through investments that will make a substantial contribution to Gross Value Added and provide high-wage, high-skilled jobs.

How to apply

1. If your company and project meet all the criteria listed above and you confirm you will be able to provide the required evidence and financial guarantees, please e-mail bmf@officeforlifesciences.gov.uk as soon as possible to schedule a call with the BMF Project Team to discuss your eligibility to submit an Expression of Interest.

2. Subject to the conversation you have had with the BMF Project Team, you should complete an Expression of Interest (EOI) form by 12pm (midday) on Friday 17 November 2023.

3. Applicants will be invited for an online interview approximately two weeks after the EOI deadline. We will inform you of your slot the previous week.

4. Applicants will be informed whether they have been successful at the EOI stage approximately one month after the EOI deadline. If successful, you will be invited to submit a full application. We will organise a briefing call to help you understand how you should complete the full application form and to agree a date by when you should submit your application.

Projects that have applied to previous UK government capital grant funding schemes are welcome to apply to the BMF, as long as they meet the criteria and eligibility requirements. Please note that a project cannot receive funding through more than one scheme.

Please note that projects must be able to defray grant funding by March 2025 at the latest.

Contact

Contact the BMF Project Team if you have any queries about the fund: bmf@officeforlifesciences.gov.uk.