New Global Alliance Aims To Speed Up Academic Drug Discovery

Published by Adeline Siew on January 24, 2013 12:53 pm under R&D

 

Six of the world’s leading health research centres have joined forces to form a global alliance that seeks to strengthen international academic and not-for-profit drug development. The aim of the Global Alliance of Leading Drug Discovery and Development Centres, which consists of organisations from Europe and North America, is to accelerate the translation of academic research into usable medicines and therapies.

 

The founding organisations include:

• The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD), Canada
• Lead Discovery Centre (LDC), Germany
• The Scripps Research Institute, Scripps Florida, United States
• The Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3), KU Leuven R&D, Belgium
• Medical Research Council (MRC) Technology, United Kingdom
• Cancer Research Technology (CRT), United Kingdom

New Global Alliance Aims To Speed Up Academic Drug Discovery

Bristol-Myers Squibb Forms the International Immuno-Oncology Network - from The Burrill Report

VINAY SINGH

The Burrill Report

“The public-private partnerships formed through the collaboration will leverage the intellectual capabilities of an extensive global network.”

Bristol-Myers Squibb has created a new International Immuno-Oncology Network, a collaboration between industry, universities, and research centers from around the world aimed at furthering the scientific understanding of immuno-oncology, or the human immune system’s potential to fight cancer.

In addition to Bristol-Myers Squibb, the collaboration consists of ten academic or cancer-research institutions from around the world including The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, the Institute of Cancer Research, and Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.

Collaborations between academia, private research institutions, and Big Pharma has become increasingly common as pharmaceutical companies continue to look outside their own walls to acquire promising new early-stage treatments and try to lessen both the risks and costs of developing such drugs.
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-bristol_myers_squibb_forms_the_international_immuno_oncology_network.html

Big Pharma Bands with Academia in $23-Million Deal

AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Merck Serono, and Pfizer have pledged support of more than £14 million ($23 million) to a translational drug development project being run by the UK’s Medical Research Council and the University of Dundee. The university’s Division of Signal Transduction Therapy (DSTT) has been working to develop treatments for several diseases including cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and Parkinson’s Disease.
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The University of Dundee and the Medical Research Council (MRC) are pleased to announce new funding of over £14million from a consortium of six pharmaceutical companies for continuing research on the development of new drug treatments for major global diseases.

The consortium, called the Division of Signal Transduction Therapy (DSTT), includes six of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies -- AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Merck-Serono (the Pharmaceutical division of Merck KGaA) and Pfizer -- and will provide core support of £14.4 million to the DSTT over the four-year period from July 2012 - 2016.
Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, said, "Collaboration between the life sciences industry and academia is vital for the development of new treatments and leverages significant private funding into our research base. This investment will continue the excellent work taking place at the University of Dundee on major global diseases, helping to bring benefits for patients and the economy."
Thought to be the world's largest collaboration between the academic community and the pharmaceutical industry, the DSTT includes 15 research teams based at the University of Dundee. Thirteen of the teams are based within the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit and Scottish Institute for Cell Signalling (SCILLS) at the College of Life Sciences. Together, consortium scientists will continue early-stage research in multiple areas, including cancer, arthritis, lupus, hypertension and Parkinson's disease.

Professor Sir Philip Cohen, co-founder of the DSTT, said, "Collaborations between academic laboratories and the pharmaceutical industry typically last a few years. Therefore to maintain and expand support for the DSTT from 1998 until at least 2016 is unprecedented and remarkable. It shows how valuable the collaboration has been for the pharmaceutical industry."

http://www.dundee.ac.uk/pressreleases/2012/may12/drugdiscovery.htm