PhaSER secures $2.7m Gates Foundation renewal for neglected disease drug research

pharmafile.com | November 14, 2026 | News story | |  Chagas disease, Chronic Diseases, Gates Foundation, Infections and infestations, Pharmacy, Rare Diseases, TB, malaria, neglected disease, preclinical studies 

Scottish drug development company PhaSER Biomedical has secured a US$2.7m (£2m), two-year grant renewal from the Gates Foundation to support research into treatments for neglected diseases.

The funding continues PhaSER’s participation in the Global Health Discovery Collaboratory, providing Gates Foundation grantees with access to its 8HUM humanised mouse models and expertise in drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics and preclinical study design.

The 8HUM model is engineered with human versions of key pathways involved in drug metabolism and elimination. It is intended to help researchers better predict how drug candidates will behave in people, addressing differences between mouse and human metabolism that can complicate preclinical development.

The renewed grant follows an initial $2.3m award in 2024. During the first funding period, the platform was used in programmes investigating treatments for tuberculosis, malaria, schistosomiasis and Chagas disease. PhaSER said the work had helped inform candidate selection and support the progression of development programmes.

The company was established in 2022 to commercialise the model, originally developed through a collaboration involving the University of Dundee, CXR Biosciences, Taconic Farms and Scottish Enterprise.

PhaSER is also developing HERALD, an artificial intelligence-based platform intended to assess drug-drug interactions and the risks associated with polypharmacy. This work involves the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the University of Dundee.

Professor Roland Wolf, founder of PhaSER, said the renewed funding would allow the company to build on the Collaboratory’s work and develop further models and capabilities with its research partners.