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The Centre for Medicines Discovery’s mission is to identify new therapeutic approaches, develop new technologies, and build broad partnerships to translate scientific discovery into new medicines.
- Prof Paul Brennan - Director

Supporting CMD research, academic partners and industry partners

The Centre for Medicines Discovery (CMD) was established in 2020 to pioneer new treatments for disease, take drug leads from the lab to the clinic and meet the University of Oxford’s aspiration to be a leader in the field of drug discovery.

The University’s experience during the Covid-19 pandemic illustrated the benefit of bringing together world leading teams and capabilities, from across the University and external partners, to deliver substantial advances in healthcare. The CMD’s formation combined teams from the Oxford Target Discovery Institute (TDI) and the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), with the goal to coalesce all Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine (NDM) drug discovery activity into one place.

As of March 2023, the CMD is entirely located within the renovated NDM Research Building. This has brought together all of the CMD experts, covering a wide range of early drug discovery capabilities, including protein production, structural biology and drug design, high-throughput screening, high-throughput functional genomics, mass spectrometry, synthetic and medicinal chemistry, functional cell biology, and research informatics.

Researchers in the CMD identify innovative therapeutic approaches, develop cutting-edge technologies, and establish extensive partnerships to translate scientific discoveries into effective medicines. Collaboration and translational science are cornerstones of the CMD, from deep partnerships with academics across the University and elsewhere to help translate basic science into clinical development projects that find efficacious lead molecules, to working closely with industry to develop those leads into new medicines. Collaborations span basic science, technology, drug development, and commercialisation.

Our focus is currently on four areas of drug discovery research: Neuroscience, Anti-infectives, Rare Disease, and Oncology. In addition, the CMD develops new Emerging Target opportunities as the scientific landscape and new partnerships evolve.