Apollo Therapeutics, a leading drug development biopharmaceutical company, partners with King’s to translate breakthroughs from King’s researchers into novel treatments that address unmet medical need.

Apollo is therapy area and modality agnostic, and successful collaborations start after identification of an exciting novel therapeutic target of disease relevance. You don’t need a full development plan, patents or IP—just some compelling findings!

Hear about what makes the Apollo experience different from other research council, charitable or industrial grant-giving bodies through their highly iterative approach towards supporting research translation.

We will showcase a King’s researcher’s experience of collaborating with Apollo to develop vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 infection, enabling the audience to consider their potential for engaging with industry partnerships, and progressing research towards patient benefit.

Speakers

• Kay Pencuid, Vice President and Head of Research Partnerships at Apollo Therapeutics,
• Professor Steven Sacks, Professor of Nephrology, Peter Gorer Department of Immunobiology, School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences, King’s College London

This session is open to all staff at King’s, with relevance for biomedical researchers (at all levels) and research support staff who are interested in developing novel treatments to meet unmet medical needs.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Understand how collaborations with industry partners like Apollo Therapeutics can support the translation of early-stage academic research into novel treatments addressing unmet medical needs
2. Identify what constitutes a compelling therapeutic opportunity from an academic perspective, including the types of findings, targets, or disease insights that are suitable for engagement—without the need for patents, IP, or a full development plan.
3. Recognise practical next steps and entry points for engaging with industry partnerships, and how researchers and research support staff can play a role in progressing ideas towards real-world impact.

More details about the Industry Partner

Apollo was initially founded in 2016 as a drug discovery fund by Imperial, UCL and Cambridge; together with GSK, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. The aim then, as now, was to create innovative new medicines by matching breakthroughs in basic medical research made at the universities with industrial drug discovery expertise at Apollo Therapeutics.

After a series of significant fundraising rounds, exceeding $450m, Apollo was established as a portfolio pharma company. King's College London and the Institute of Cancer Research joined a few years later, followed by Oxford University in 2024. Apollo now has six programmes in the clinic, and a strong pre-clinical pipeline.

Why collaborate with Apollo?

• Engage from the earliest stages: Apollo partners long before patents are filed or formal therapeutic development begins, supporting projects all the way to the clinic
• Benefit from pre‑agreed collaboration terms: with contracting and financial frameworks already in place, projects can progress quickly without lengthy negotiations
• Access flexible funding models: support ranges from milestone‑based pre‑clinical proof‑of‑concept studies to multi‑million‑pound pre‑clinical and clinical programmes

If you have any questions about this event, please reach out to King's Innovation Catalyst at innovation@kcl.ac.uk.