AstraZeneca to sequence genomes to develop new drugs
pharmafile | April 22, 2016 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | AstraZeneca, Finland, Wellcome Trust, collaboration, genome, genomics, human longevity, institute for molecular medicine, sanger institute
AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) has announced an integrated genomics initiative that aims to transform the drug discovery and development across is entire research and development pipeline.
As well as creating its own in-house Centre for Genomics Research, the initiative will see AstraZeneca partner with several renowned institutions.
They will share up to 500,000 DNA samples with Human Longevity Inc in the US, who will sequence full genomes and deploy its machine learning, pattern recognition and other analytical techniques.
The collaboration with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the UK will see the sharing of genomic samples and associated clinical data, plus its drug development expertise across core therapy areas. AstraZeneca will seek to identify new targets and biomarkers with potential use in diagnostic tests in this parternship.
Along with the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland, the pharma company will study genes of interest within the Finnish population, which is known to carry a higher than normal frequency of rare variants.
AstraZeneca has indicated that, as part of its “open innovation” approach to R&D, research findings from all collaborations across its genomic platform will be published in peer-reviewed journals.
Menelas Pangalos, executive VP of innovative medicines and early development at AZ, says: “Using the power of genomics is the foundation of our ambition to develop the most innovative and impactful treatments for patients… We will leverage information from up to 2 million genome sequences to drive drug discovery and development across all our therapeutic areas. Genomics will be fundamental to our laboratory research, our clinical trials and the launch of our medicines for patients.”
Sean Murray
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