University College Cork – Pfizer Research Collaboration

8 Oct 2026

Ireland’s research capacity is expanding through a unique engagement between an Irish university and the pharmaceutical industry, involving the high-end drug discovery space, and a new partnership between UCC and Pfizer.

The project is led by Professors Anita Maguire and Gerard McGlacken, and Pfizer Pre-Clinical and Translational Sciences with support from Pfizer and Rinn Pharma & Biopharma.

The research is undertaken by two postdoctoral researchers, Miriam Gomez-Benmansour (in the team led by Anita Maguire and Dr Stuart Collins) and Laurence Rohde (Gerard McGlacken’s team) based at UCC, while collaborating with Pfizer.

This project builds on a long-standing relationship between UCC's School of Chemistry and Pfizer Ringaskiddy, which has included support for PhD students, undergraduate and postgraduate placements, internships, advanced analytical facilities, and the development of highly skilled chemistry graduates.

This latest initiative reflects an important step change in the UCC Pfizer relationship as the collaboration now involves the Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery teams within Pfizer – a first for the partnership and a significant strategic development nationally. 

The pharmaceutical sector in Ireland has undergone major strategic development over the past 30 years and more recently expanding the scope of activity to include process development and other activities and broadening the focus to include biopharma, and other modalities.

This collaboration marks an important milestone in Ireland’s strategic journey to include early stages in the discovery lifecycle and will contribute to raising awareness of the capability within the Irish Research landscape.