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.

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 - submit a short summary of your project (no longer than one side of A4) outlining:

• project background: a description of the planned investment, relevant context and an indication of when the investment could start
• an estimate of the total size of the investment broken down into capital, R&D and any training costs. Note: we will only be able to pay a grant towards the capital costs, but it is helpful for you to tell us about all of the project costs

Send the summary to the BMF project team at bmf@officeforlifesciences.gov.uk. We recommend you share this with the BMF project team well in advance of the EOI deadline (step 2) so we have adequate time to discuss your application with you. This summary will enable the BMF team to advise on whether your project is likely to be in scope and your company is eligible to apply. It will not be used to assess the merits of the project; if your project is eligible, it will be assessed subsequently as part of the Expression of Interest phase and interview.

2. Subject to the conversation you have had with the BMF Project Team, you should complete an Expression of Interest (EOI) form. These will be reviewed as described below:

Phases

We aim to open the fund in 2 phases, with the following deadlines to submit EOIs:

Phase 1 deadlines for EOIs:

• Wave 1: Friday 30 June 2023, 12pm (noon)
• Wave 2: Monday 31 July 2023, 12pm (noon)

If funding remains available at the end of Phase 1, we will re-open the fund for a Phase 2. The below dates are indicative.

Phase 2 deadlines for EOIs:

• Wave 3: Tuesday 31 October 2023, 12pm (noon)
• Wave 4: Thursday 30 November 2023, 12pm (noon)

We encourage you to apply early as the fund will close once all funding is allocated.

Applicants who apply in the 1st phase (June-July 2023) will be prioritised for due diligence, especially if they will spend a substantial amount of the grant before March 2024.

3. Applicants will be invited for an online interview approximately 2 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 for when you should submit your application by.

Projects that have applied to the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund (LSIMF) are welcome to apply to BMF, as long as they meet the criteria and eligibility requirements. Projects will only be able to receive funding from one of these; applications can only be considered for one fund.

If you have already submitted an Expression of Interest to the LSIMF Phase 2 that opened on 2 May 2023 and you think your project might be better suited for BMF, please contact the BMF support team.

Contact

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

Find out more here: Biomanufacturing Fund (BMF): open to expressions of interest - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)