MWC Affiliate Dr Francis Hunter wins international innovation prize
21 July 2015
Congratulations to Dr Francis Hunter, a postdoctoral fellow at the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre, who was a member of the winning team in the 5th Merck Serono Innovation Cup program.
The program run by Merck Serono, the biopharmaceutical business of Merck, involves a week-long ‘Innovation Summer Camp’ in Germany where participants learn the essentials of drug discovery and development in a highly stimulating and competitive environment. Participants work in teams to generate new innovative ideas for therapeutics and with support from Merck Serono coaches turn these ideas into business plans which are presented to a jury of senior Merck managers and external experts at the end of the week.
Dr Hunter was one of 31 postdoctoral fellows, MBA and PhD students and clinicians selected for the 2015 program which received over 800 applications from more than 50 countries. His teams winning idea is to create an innovative hypoxia activated prodrug approach for the treatment of cancer.
For full details of the winning team and the Merck Serono Innovation Cup program see http://www.merckserono.com/en/partners/open_innovation_portal/Innovation_Cup/Innovation_Cup.html