Nucleate Announces a Three Year Partnership with ARIA in the UK

Nucleate, the non-profit organization dedicated to empowering the next generation of biotech leaders, announced a new partnership with the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) today. Nucleate UK will become an Activation Partner — a select group of organizations that foster science entrepreneurship within ARIA’s opportunity spaces. The announcement marks Nucleate’s first major partnership with a governmental funding body.

Since its establishment in 2022, Nucleate UK has quickly become one of the organization’s largest regions, spanning London, Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester with a team of over 70 academic trainees. The UK is now gearing up for its 3rd Activator program, having worked with 31 teams over the last two years across bio and eco. As an ARIA Activation Partner, Nucleate UK will now build on these foundations, scaling its community building efforts across ARIA’s current Programmable Plants opportunity space as well as the agency’s future spaces in both Bio and Eco, and supporting teams working across these opportunity spaces to commercialize breakthrough scientific discoveries.

“Just as the creation of ARIA marked a paradigm shift in R&D funding in the UK, the Activation Partners are a turning point in UK science commercialization.” said James Bayne, Co-Founder of Nucleate UK. “Together with ARIA, we are excited to cultivate a new mindset of science entrepreneurship and empower founders to build generation-defining companies in the UK”, added Federico Caso, Chief of Staff at Nucleate UK.

By leveraging deep expertise in the UK life sciences ecosystem and its global network of volunteers and advisors, Nucleate will establish a unique talent pipeline with ARIA. Focused on three key activities — ”Identify” top UK talent and breakthrough science, “Develop” that talent through tailored initiatives within ARIA’s opportunity spaces, and “Translate” promising projects into ventures through the Activator program — Nucleate is set to drive the next wave of life sciences innovation in the UK.

Nucleate will begin delivering on this partnership right away, starting with ARIA’s Programmable Plants opportunity space. As ARIA looks to expand in 2025 with new Program Directors, Nucleate will extend its support to emerging opportunity spaces in Bio and Eco, ensuring a continuous pipeline of talent and innovation ready to tackle some of the UK’s biggest challenges.

“In a short amount of time, Nucleate has become a leader in community building and founder support. They deeply understand the ecosystem, and have built trust and credibility with technical talent across the UK,” said Pippy James, Chief Product Officer at ARIA. “We’re excited to bring them onboard as Activation Partners and leverage their expertise to discover and support founders in building generation-defining biotech companies here in the UK.

“ARIA’s commitment to advancing the UK’s robust ecosystem through talent and technology is strongly aligned with Nucleate’s mission, and our track record to date. Our partnership represents an exciting new mechanism for bridging key gaps between academia and industry for emerging innovators” said Soufiane Aboulhouda, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board at Nucleate. “We’re proud to be selected as an Activation Partner and look forward to leveraging our global capabilities to advance UK innovation while strengthening UK-US ties” added Heer Joisher, Co-President and Co-Chair of the International Working Committee at Nucleate.

Nucleate’s Activator program is currently accepting applications for new ventures in bio and eco — interest can be registered at apply.nucleate.org

About Nucleate

Nucleate is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering the next generation of biotech leaders. With chapters spanning 41 geographic regions and participation from over 280 academic institutions, Nucleate sparks new intellectual communities and embeds emerging talent within a global biotech community. Through open-access educational programming, Nucleate helps democratize biotech innovation — removing barriers and helping founders concentrate on building transformational technologies.

Nucleate’s programs are made possible thanks to our generous HQ sponsors:

• Platinum: Eli Lilly and Company, Genentech, Pillar VC, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, BlueYard Capital, MilliporeSigma.
• Gold: Excedr.
• Silver: Biocom California, Breakout Ventures, Schrödinger, Cromatic, Sanofi, PHCbi, Molecule.
• Philanthropic: Schmidt Futures, Lyda Hill Philanthropies.

Visit www.nucleate.org for more information, and email contact@nucleate.org if you want to get involved with our programming.