Portage Glasgow Limited
University of Glasgow Partners with Portage Pharmaceuticals.
In 2017, Professor George Baillie, from the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences in the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences received a small grant from our MRC Proximity to Discovery (P2D) Partnership Development Grants Scheme (Funding opportunities). With this award, Prof. Ballie visited Portage Pharmaceuticals to discuss developing drug targets to treat chronic conditions, including cancer. This secondment enabled a research partnership to develop between the University of Glasgow and Portage Pharmaceuticals (Stage 1, Ideas & Identification).
This partnership has grown into a joint venture which will enhance the University of Glasgow’s expertise in precision medicine through commercialisation of new therapies, aimed at disrupting protein-protein interactions (PPI). Portage Pharmaceuticals is injecting an undisclosed sum into the business and has granted a limited license to its Cell PorterTM peptide delivery technology (Stage 2&3, Concept validation & Progression).
Prof. Baillie said "P2D funding is the ideal resource to support relationship bolstering activity that requires one of the parties to make a short residential visit to the other. My P2D award convinced Portage that the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences were fully supportive of my interaction with the company. My short visit to meet their scientific advisory board in Yale, New Haven USA was the spark that ignited the initiative to push for the formation of Portage, Glasgow Ltd. Without this face-to-face meeting our potential synergy would not have been explored fully and the new company would not have been formed."
For links to experimental advice, business development support and funding opportunities available within the University of Glasgow involving therapeutic translation, please see our Therapeutic Innovation Roadmap.