GlaxoSmithKline seeks alliances with ‘academic superstars’
pharmafile | March 2, 2011 | News story | Research and Development | GSK, GlaxoSmithKline, Pentraxin Therapeutics, academia, al Free and University College Medical School, universities
GlaxoSmithKline has unveiled a partnership with a ‘superstar academic’, as part of a new strategy which it believes will help it develop drugs more cost effectively.
The company says it wants to forge long term partnerships with 10 such superstars, and has unveiled Professor Mark Pepys as its first.
Professor Pepys is head of medicine at the Royal Free and University College Medical School, and is also head of UCL-spin out Pentraxin Therapeutics.
GSK entered into a specific collaboration with Pentraxin in January to develop the drug for a rare form of amyloidosis, a fatal and currently untreatable disease.
GSK now wants to forge a new kind of partnership – in which academics work more closely with the company, but still retain their independence.
GSK will fund their facilities and research, and provide incentives to the lead researchers, and will have exclusive rights to any candidates for development.
Professor Pepys told the Financial Times: “It’s a wonderful idea and we are delighted to be working with GSK to develop new medicines for patients.”
Patrick Vallance is senior vice-president for drug discovery and development at GSK, having joined the company himself in 2006 from UCL, where he headed up research at the university’s Division of Medicine.
Vallance says GSK’s approach will provide an alternative to the often arduous task of developing a drug via a biotech spin-out. Biotech entrepreneurs spend much of their time raising funding for their research, but this has become increasingly difficult in the last few years.
Prof Pepys was very blunt in his assessment of pharma’s drug discovery performance.
“We all agree that big pharma is useless at discovering new drugs and has to get its ideas from somewhere else,” he said.
“GSK can cherry-pick projects and we work together in a highly interactive, collaborative way. We invented the molecule, and they use their medicinal chemistry expertise to improve it. This is absolutely thrilling.”
The collaboration comes at a time when big pharma companies are looking to make their drug discovery and development far more productive and cost-effective.
Meanwhile, universities in the UK will now have to fight for income after the government slashed their overall funding grants. Government funding for research has been frozen this year, but face a cut of £45 million in the next academic year.
Andrew McConaghie
Related Content
GSK shares results from phase 3 trial for gonorrhoea treatment
GSK has announced positive results from its phase 3 EAGLE-1 trial for gepotidacin, a potential …
GSK’s meningococcal vaccine candidate accepted for FDA review
GSK has announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for review …
GSK shares data from phase 3 trial for Jemperli combinations for endometrial cancer treatment
GSK has announced positive results from part 1 and part 2 of its RUBY/ENGOT-EN6/GOG3031/NSGO phase …
