Novel drug sensor platform - bringing new technology closer to market

In the year 2010 - 2011 the UK Border Agency (UKBA) made over 1,200 individual seizures of Class-A drugs totalling 3,000kg. In August of this year alone a record-setting 1.2 tons of cocaine was seized in one drug bust aboard a pleasure boat - an unusually high amount for one bust but a level of success the UKBA wants to maintain.

There is a range of drug detection equipment on the market today, but each has its strengths and limitations, including sniffer dogs, which are often considered one of the most efficient and highly sensitive means for drug detection. The limitations of existing technologies include high levels of false alarms, low levels of sensitivity compared to sniffer dogs and high cost using disposable consumables. Specifically with regards to dogs, high upkeep cost and a dog's nature of getting tired or confused, and inability to act as evidence in a court of law, are all big issues.

The team at City is proposing to develop a prototype real-time multi-drug sensing detection system to address the above challenge and this builds upon the success of the initial EPSRC project, where a novel, highly sensitive and selective optical fibre-based portable cocaine sensor, using the molecularly imprinting polymer (MIP) technique coupled with fluorescence signalling, has been successfully developed and evaluated. The Home Office CAST members were instrumental in identifying the need as an end-user for this new sensor technology exploitation and its associated new drug sensor development. They, together with advisors from Smiths Detection, are shaping the main deliverables of this proposal to ensure that it results in a commercially robust product.

Initially the device will be developed to detect drugs concealed in hard-to-reach areas in vehicles or containers crossing borders, where currently sniffer dogs are frequently used to locate the illegal substance. However, the underlying technology is capable of meeting a much wider range of applications.

This follow-on funding is vital for the team to develop the technology to a stage that it can be licensed to an existing manufacturer, currently supplying drug detection devices to the Border Security Agencies around the world.

City's technology transfer team will be an integral part of this project, carrying out simultaneous market validation exercises and feeding back to the academic team on a continual basis. This intelligence will advise the product development process. The team will also work with the in-house Incubator to establish whether an additional or alternative route to market could involve creating a spin-out company capable of attracting seed investment.

The major beneficiaries of the project are as follows with details of how they will benefit:
1) Addressing the misery that drug abuse brings to our society. There are approximately 320,000 heroin and/or crack cocaine users in England of which around 170,000 are in treatment in any one year. Offenders who use heroin, cocaine or crack cocaine are estimated to commit between a third and a half of all acquisitive crime. A significant impact on the lives of those caught up in drug abuse could come from the success of better drug detection. This will help to deter drug traffickers from importing drugs to the UK, consequently restricting drug supply and minimising the negative impact of misuse on individuals, families, communities and society.
2) The public sector and taxpayers. Drugs cost the UK economy alone £15.4 billion each year and around 8% of all working age benefit claimants in England are dependent on drugs or alcohol, and generate benefit expenditure costs of approximately £1.6 billion per year. The success of this project will not just provide the public sector and stakeholders with more effective drug detection tools, but also create significant savings to our economy as a result of the reduction of illicit and other harmful drug use.
3) The commercial private sector. Clear impact will be seen to UK industry as new products will be delivered to the market, and new partnerships created, both during the project period and subsequently. This will be followed up by commercial development through appropriate licence arrangements with City as the patent owners, with considerable export potential to address a world-wide problem.
4) The UK Institution involved. City will benefit both from the enhancement of its current research portfolio and from ownership of exploitable Intellectual Property arising from the patent protection that will be taken out for the new technologies, thereby creating further financial benefits to the University.
5) The investigators. An important positive impact will be from the experience gained in the coordination and management of this type of commercially-driven research by working closely with industrial partners and University TTO, and gaining wider experience of industrial practice as a result.
6) The early career PDRAs and PhD students involved. The project will act as a platform for the education of early-career researchers (and potentially a collaborating research student from the group). They will gain significant experience by working with colleagues across different sectors and learn from the process by being intimately involved in a project that really matters to society.