MRC gives £7 million to new projects
pharmafile | November 6, 2012 | News story | Sales and Marketing | AstraZeneca, MRC, academics
The Medical Research Council (MRC) has handed out £7 million in funding for 15 research projects which will use a total of 22 chemical compounds owned by AstraZeneca.
Alzheimer’s, cancer, lung disease, motor neurone disease and muscular dystrophies will be among the conditions studied by a range of institutions.
University College London received funding for three projects, along with the universities of Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield (two projects), Glasgow, Birmingham (also two), Edinburgh, Bristol and Imperial College London.
The Royal Veterinary College and the MRC Mammalian Genetics Unit at Harwell were the other recipients after 23 applications to the MRC for funding were made in all.
Eight of the successful projects will involve clinical trials, with the other seven working on laboratory and animal models: AstraZeneca offered free use of the compounds after the manufacturer put their development on hold.
The collaboration with the MRC was announced by David Cameron nearly a year ago as part of the UK Life Sciences Strategy.
AstraZeneca did not assess the competing projects. Instead the MRC used a system of international expert peer review, with funding decisions based on the proposals’ ‘scientific quality and importance’.
Professor Patrick Johnston, chair of the MRC’s Translational Research Group, said the quality of applications was “higher than we could ever have hoped” and praised AstraZeneca’s generosity.
For the pharma group, it is a chance to maximise its portfolio’s potential, as its president of R&D, Martin Mackay, acknowledges.
“Partnering across government, academia and industry is a critical way to spur additional scientific innovation and the delivery of new treatments for people who desperately need them,” he said.
AstraZeneca will retain existing rights to the compounds but new research findings will be owned by the academic institution concerned.
Sharmila Nebhrajani, chief executive of the Association of Medical Research Charities, welcomed the awards, saying that they allow “access to previously unavailable compounds that may hold the key to understanding some highly debilitating diseases”.
Adam Hill
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