Asier Unciti-Broceta

Having received his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the Universidad of Granada, Spain, in 2004, he completed his postdoctoral training in the fields of cell delivery and chemical biology in the School of Chemistry of the University of Edinburgh. He then joined the Institute of Genetics and Cancer as a group leader in 2010, where he established the Innovative Therapeutics Lab in 2010 (the first chemistry lab of the Institute) to explore novel chemical strategies to improve the efficacy and safety of cancer treatments.

Professor Unciti-Broceta has had a strong interest in translational research for many years and as far back as 2010 when he spun out Deliverics Ltd, a company which allowed him to commercialise two of his patent-granted inventions. Unfortunately, the company closed in 2016, but this experience was a vital stepping stone that allowed him to understand the key steps to succeed in translating innovation. 

He is an inventor of several patent-granted and licensed technologies. Most significantly, he and Professor Neil Carragher have led the discovery of a novel drug candidate for hard-to-treat cancers known as NXP900, which was the culmination of over a decade of collaborative research. EI’s Head of Technology Transfer, Dr Maria Lopalco, worked with the research team from an early stage to develop the commercial proposition and brokered the complex and high-value licence deal on behalf of the University.

In 2021, NXP900 was licensed by US biopharmaceutical company Nuvectis Pharma, Inc. in a multi-million-dollar deal facilitated by Edinburgh Innovations, and in September 2023, Nuvectis received approval to initiate clinical trials, marking a substantial move towards a medicine to treat some of the toughest cancers.

Nuvectis successfully completed a phase 1 clinical trial in the summer of 2025 and initiated two phase 1b trials. This is one of the University’s most significant commercial partnerships both in terms of income and impact on the world.

Professor Unciti-Broceta has recently received the Scottish Government’s Proof of Concept Award for the development of a new anti-cancer drug which may be up to 100 times more effective against both blood and solid cancers than current treatments. The award of nearly £125,000 is for the preclinical development of next-generation mTOR inhibitors with superpotency and superselectivity, which could overcome the tolerability issues and limited activity of current inhibitors. The next steps are to find the right partner to complete IND-enabling studies and to progress to clinical trials.