What Quadram Institute does

Quadram Institute Bioscience (QIB) is a UK interdisciplinary research institute located at Norwich Research Park, founded in 2017 and operating from a state-of-the-art facility that houses fundamental and applied bioscientists alongside Europe's largest endoscopy unit. The institute investigates how food and microbes interact to promote health, with core research areas spanning gut microbiome science, food innovation, antimicrobial resistance, and infectious-disease surveillance. It maintains proprietary technical capabilities including next-generation sequencing (short- and long-read) through its QIB Extra service, advanced microscopy, gastrointestinal simulation models (colon model facility), organ-on-chip systems (including gut-brain axis models), clinical research facilities for human dietary studies, and a stack of custom bioinformatics pipelines (MATAFILER, LotuS, sdm) developed for metagenomics and bacterial strain tracking.

Quadram is funded primarily through UK public research bodies — Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) — with operational partnerships anchored by Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the University of East Anglia, the Earlham Institute, the John Innes Centre, and the Wellcome Sanger Institute (via the COG-UK genomics consortium). Revenue is largely grant-driven (research services, public funding), supplemented by fee-for-service sequencing and consultancy through QIB Extra, industry advisory-panel engagements, and licensing/spinout pathways (e.g., Beneforte broccoli, Xampla microencapsulation partnership, vitamin D-biofortified tomatoes). The institute's customer base spans NHS hospital trusts, UK government regulators, academic collaborators globally, and a growing set of industry partners; healthy volunteers are recruited regionally for human studies via an online participant database.

Name

Quadram Institute

Legal name

Quadram Institute Bioscience

Website

https://quadram.ac.uk

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

Quadram Institute is a UK publicly-funded bioscience institute at Norwich Research Park that researches food-microbe-gut health interactions, offering sequencing, clinical, and bioinformatics services to NHS, government, academic, and industry partners.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Norwich

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Research Grants and Public Funding: The institute receives substantial funding from government bodies including UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), Food Standards Agency (FSA), and other public funding bodies for fundamental and applied research programs.
2. Fee-for-Service Sequencing and Research Services: The institute offers commercial sequencing services through QIB Extra, providing next-generation sequencing services and consultancy on a fee-for-service basis to external researchers and organizations.
3. Enterprise Partnerships and Spinouts: The institute engages with industry through partnerships, industry advisory panels, and has created spinout companies from its research outputs.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

The Quadram Institute Bioscience (QIB) is an interdisciplinary research institute at Norwich Research Park that investigates how food and microbes interact to promote health. It delivers fundamental and applied bioscience research spanning gut microbiome science, food safety, and clinical nutrition, supported by next-generation sequencing services, advanced microscopy, organ-on-chip and gastrointestinal simulation platforms, and an integrated Clinical Research Facility operated with Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.

Product overview

The Quadram Institute operates as a research institute rather than a commercial product company, offering a portfolio of research services and scientific capabilities. Core offerings include: a Clinical Research Facility for human dietary and nutrition studies; Next Generation Sequencing services for short-read and long-read DNA sequencing; the Food Safety Research Network for collaborative food safety research; and an Early Career Fellowships Programme for scientist development. Research activities focus on gut microbiome interactions, food and health, antimicrobial resistance, and microbial genomics. The institute also develops bioinformatics tools and pipelines for microbiome analysis, and has produced biofortified food products such as vitamin D tomatoes through genetic research programmes.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 4,644 scientific publications generated to date
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability9 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

20 partnerships are on record, tiered core, secondary and minor.

• University of OxfordcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration on UK-wide genomics study conducted by UK Food Standards Agency to investigate antimicrobial resistance in Campylobacter isolates from human infections. The study found increasing fluoroquinolone and tetracycline resistance in Campylobacter.
• Moredun InstitutecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration on UK Food Standards Agency genomics study on Campylobacter and antimicrobial resistance in food safety research.
• Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Foundation TrustcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOperational partnership for the Clinical Research Facility within the Quadram Institute. Since September 2022, the CRF has become part of Norfolk CRF partly funded by NIHR. The partnership enables experimental medicine and translational research into food and nutrition.
• University of East AngliacoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerKey academic partner on the Norwich Research Park. UEA provides student supervision, PhD programs through the NRP Doctoral Training Programme, and joint research collaborations including with the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital on prostate cancer and other studies.
• COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) ConsortiumcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLed by the Wellcome Sanger Institute, this national consortium brings together NHS organisations, four Public Health Agencies, Wellcome Sanger Institute and 16+ academic institutions including Quadram Institute providing sequencing and analysis capacity for pathogen genomics.
• Norwich Research Park PartnerscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership with John Innes Centre, Earlham Institute, and other bioscience organizations on the Norwich Research Park enabling shared infrastructure, NMR facilities, and interdisciplinary research collaboration.
• Earlham InstitutecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborative research on gut microbiome, microbial interactions, and bioinformatics. Prof. Falk Hildebrand holds a joint position. Shared NMR resources available at John Innes Centre and UEA.
• Imperial College LondonsecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner in the Food, Microbiome and Health research program focusing on food and gut microbiome research.
• University of SurreysecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner in the Food, Microbiome and Health research program.
• National Health Service (NHS)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership with NHS through Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital for clinical research and patient care innovation. NIHR Clinical Research Facility provides infrastructure.
• UK Health Security AgencycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerKey strategic partner in public health research, food safety, and infectious disease surveillance through COG-UK consortium.
• SKAN Research TrustsecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration with SKAN Research Trust (India) in gut microbiome research to advance understanding of microbiome-related health conditions.
• Jiangnan UniversitysecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerBBSRC-funded UK-China joint centre for research on probiotics. Prof. Arjan Narbad serves as Visiting Professor at Jiangnan University.
• Wellcome Sanger InstitutecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLead institution of COG-UK consortium. Provides sequencing capacity and coordination for the national COVID-19 genomic surveillance effort.
• Nature SeychellesminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration on Seychelles warbler research studying gut bacteria and immune system interactions, alongside UEA, Centre for Microbial Interactions, and University of Groningen.
• Cloud Infrastructure for Microbial Bioinformatics (CLIMB)coreTechnology or IntegrationCLIMB provides cloud computing infrastructure for microbial genomics, which was leveraged for COG-UK activities. Collaboration between Warwick, Birmingham, Cardiff, Swansea, Bath, Leicester, MRC Gambia, and Quadram Institute.
• GLYTUNES Training NetworksecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerEuropean-funded multidisciplinary training network for bioinspired development of glycomimetics tuning the Siglec-Sialoglycan axis. Prof. Nathalie Juge participates in this initiative.
• European Research Network Train2TargetsecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerEuropean Commission International Training Network funded by Horizon 2020 supporting research on Fusobacterium nucleatum and colorectal cancer.
• XamplasecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration to advance probiotic microencapsulation technology for improved delivery of beneficial bacteria.
• Industry Advisory PanelsecondaryChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorStructured engagement mechanism with industry partners providing guidance on research priorities and facilitating knowledge transfer from academia to commercial applications.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Wellcome Sanger Institute: UK-based genomics and bioinformatics research institute that leads the COG-UK consortium in which Quadram participates. Operates at much larger scale but pursues overlapping pathogen genomics, microbiome, and translational biology programmes on a non-commercial, grant-funded basis.
• John Innes Centre: Co-located on Norwich Research Park with Quadram; conducts plant science, microbiology, and food-related bioscience research. Directly comparable as a BBSRC-funded UK research institute with a similar funding mix and translational science mandate.
• Earlham Institute: Co-located on Norwich Research Park; focused on computational bioscience, bioinformatics, and genomics. Several Quadram PIs (e.g. Falk Hildebrand) hold joint appointments, and the institute shares NMR and sequencing infrastructure with Quadram, making it a direct operating peer.
• Rothamsted Research: Long-standing UK agricultural and food-safety research institute also funded by BBSRC. Comparable in operating model (publicly funded research, spinout track record) and overlapping research themes in food safety, crop science, and precision breeding, including the first gene-edited barley to receive a Precision Bred Organism marketing notice.
• Babraham Institute: BBSRC-funded UK research institute focused on epigenetics, signalling, and immunology. Directly comparable in scale, funding mix, and biotech-spinout posture, and competes with Quadram for BBSRC strategic funding and life-science talent.
• APC Microbiome Ireland: Ireland-based SFI-funded research centre focused on gut microbiome, host-microbe interactions, and microbial therapies. Closest international peer in terms of research focus (gut microbiome, microbially-produced bioactives, clinical translation), though funded through Irish research council mechanisms.

Broad incumbents

• The Francis Crick Institute: Largest biomedical research institute in Europe, with overlapping interests in disease biology and translational medicine. Operates a similar model of public/charitable funding with deep clinical research partnerships, but at materially greater scale and broader scope than Quadram.
• MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology: MRC-funded research institute in Cambridge with a track record of basic biological discovery and successful spinouts. Comparable operating model (publicly funded research with strong IP translation) but a broader life-sciences remit and a longer-established entrepreneurial pipeline.
• EMBL-EBI: European Bioinformatics Institute, part of EMBL. Comparable to Quadram's bioinformatics group (Hildebrand) in providing public-good computational infrastructure for genomics and microbiome data, including CLIMB compute used in COG-UK work that Quadram relies on.

Regional players

• Teagasc: Ireland's national food and agriculture research authority, conducting food safety, microbiome, and agrifood research with similar translational and industry-facing remit to Quadram, but operating in a different national funding ecosystem.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/TheQuadram
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UC-_hx1PJwMsIWSp1_aBU6uQ
• Facebookfacebook.com/QuadramInstitute
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/quadram-institute
• Instagraminstagram.com/quadraminstitute

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors1 record

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Quadram Institute