Boehringer signs diabetes research deal
pharmafile | September 7, 2012 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Boehringer, diabetes, obesity
Boehringer Ingelheim has signed a four-year research agreement with a top Swiss university to look at the underlying causes of conditions such as diabetes and obesity.
ETH Zurich specialises in technology and the natural sciences, and its institutes of Molecular Health Science and Food, Nutrition and Health will be at the forefront of the work.
The deal with Boehringer will focus on investigating three cell types that may contribute to the development of the diseases because of their role in metabolic homoeostasis.
The hope is to illuminate potential links between preclinical findings and disease progression: four initial projects will include work on the function of surface proteins and signalling pathways of neuroendocrine cells in the pancreatic islets and the intestine, and looking at the ways brown fat tissue develops.
Data could be put to several uses, among them to design new drug candidates or to create better clinical trials, or to look at how existing treatments could be tailored to benefit specific patient populations.
The researchers say they are looking for novel biomarkers and diagnostic tools that may help with better monitoring and planning of interventions for diabetes and obesity.
This sort of collaboration between pharma and academia has become increasingly popular over the last few years, with each side drawing on complementary strengths and resources.
In June, Sanofi signed a deal with the Joslin Center, a teaching and research affiliate of the Harvard Medical School, to develop drugs to treat diabetes, for example.
Boehringer hopes that partnering with the university will have the ultimate goal of turning basic scientific findings into new, marketable treatments.
Wolfgang Rettig, Boehringer’s corporate senior vice president research at Boehringer Ingelheim, said: “This collaboration will provide new insights into the pathophysiology of diabetes and obesity and will further bolster our efforts to find innovative medicines for the treatment of these prevalent diseases.”
Diabetes is an obvious target for pharma, not least because of the large – and growing – scale of the problem worldwide: 366 million people are already affected and this is expected to rise to 550 million around 2030.
Obesity, a major risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes, is estimated to be responsible for 90% of all newly diagnosed cases.
Adam Hill
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