Public Funding for Cambridge Glycoscience Ltd

The potential for enhancing innovation in the UK economy through Novel Foods is significant, as acknowledged by the government in the Pro-innovation Regulation of Technologies Review -- Life Sciences. The process for Novel Foods approval in the UK demands specialised regulatory and scientific expertise, access to reliable certified analytical facilities and a clear understanding of the requirements. Building the required network is challenging especially for SMEs, who tend to have more limited resources, but also larger enterprises venturing into the Novel Foods application process for the first time. Consequently, the creation of a scientific dossier necessary to assess the safety of a Novel Food correctly may not only take significantly longer than need be but also be of limited quality. The repercussions of a deficient understanding of regulatory and scientific requirements extend beyond financial burdens, affecting the overall innovation ecosystem and potentially stunting economic growth. To fulfil the UK's goal of becoming a global leader in innovative research design and delivery, it is increasingly important to support food innovators on their regulatory journey for Novel Foods submissions. This proposal aims to develop a project for the creation of a regulatory science network to be UK's first Expert Network for Novel Foods Regulatory Challenges. The main objectives of the network will be to: * Serve as a central hub for learning resources, facilitating access to critical information, and promoting the development of regulatory science tools. Aim to improve access to these tools, empowering companies with a clearer understanding of the regulatory processes, data requirements, risk, and safety assessments necessary for their specific ingredient(s), ultimately enhancing the quality of dossiers. * Promote connections for food and ingredient innovators with experts and service providers in the field, including analytical and technology organisations, scale-up and manufacturing facilities, expert consultants, and research institutions. * Foster a positive exchange with regulatory authorities, offering insights into industry challenges, emerging technologies and conducting horizon scanning. Supplementing information accessible to regulators for informed and data-driven decision-making will enable agile and proportionate regulation in response to innovation. The network will be feeding into the government's aim of making the process more collaborative and transparent, and to provide smoother pathways for swift market entry of new technologies and products. It will engage food companies, service providers, academics, and regulators, to foster an open dialogue to advance regulatory science for Novel Foods collaboratively.

The 20th century food system was built of readily accessible carbohydrates (refined sucrose & starch, 4kcal/g). It provided abundant calories but led to localised nutrient excess and health issues such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. The 21st-­century's food system must redress this nutritional imbalance. Despite well-documented negative impacts of sugar and flour, they are cheap and highly functional ingredients, making their replacement challenging. To date, the food industry's attempts at "healthier" product reformulation have achieved only partial success. Despite being more agriculturally abundant than refined carbohydrates, fibre (0-2kcal/g), the macronutrient most lacking in Western diets, has been largely ignored. This collaboration between Cambridge Glycoscience Ltd and the University of Cambridge looks to redress this imbalance by expediting the commercialisation of CamGlyco's platform of "From Fibre" ingredients by turning agriculture's most abundant renewable resources (by-products like corn cobs, oat hulls and wheat straw) into replacements for sugar and flour / starch in food. The project outputs will provide farmers with additional income streams from underutilised plant residues, produce more food per unit of land, without concomitant increase in greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss, and give access to healthier ingredients to companies and consumers across mainstream food products; providing better food for all.

Sugar doesn't just makes food sweet, it plays many other import roles such as texture, aroma and browning. To this day, there are no ingredients that can faithfully and economically replace the properties of sugar in food. As a result, sugar is still used in high levels in most mainstream food products, such as cakes, chocolate and biscuits. Sugar consumption contributes to high blood pressure, obesity and type 2 diabetes, all high-risk factors for COVID-19, leading to an increased propensity of people with these conditions developing severe illness. Cambridge Glycoscience has developed a first of a kind plant-based, natural, lower calorie and lower glycaemic impact ingredient that can replace sugar in food in a cost competitive manner. This project with the Dupree Group at University of Cambridge will help us further improve our product making better sugars for all. This will enable manufacturers in the UK, Europe and globally to make great-tasting, nutritionally enhanced, and cleaner label products, leading to healthier populations.