Pharma firms give researchers access

pharmafile | July 22, 2014 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen R&D, MRC, Pfizer, Takeda, UCB, lilly, research, virtual library 

 

UK researchers are to gain access to compounds from seven pharma companies in a partnership with the Medical Research Council (MRC) which creates a ‘virtual library’.

AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen R&D, Lilly, Pfizer, Takeda and UCB are each going to offer up molecules which have failed for one reason or another – but which may still have applications outside their original goals.

 

As yet there is no word on exactly what these ‘deprioritised’ compounds are, but the MRC promises a full list will be published later in the year, when scientists will be able to apply to the research body for funding to use them in academic projects.

No budget has been fixed for the programme and the MRC hopes more companies will add their own compounds to the library as the scheme takes root.

“By funding studies using these compounds, which otherwise would not be carried out, we will enable scientific breakthroughs that will improve the health of patients in the UK and worldwide,” says MRC chief executive Professor Sir John Savill.

The MRC says the compounds are ‘incredibly valuable’ to researchers for “the development of new medicines for many debilitating conditions”. For a start they have undergone preliminary development in areas such as safety testing, which means if new treatments are derived then they could reach patients quickly.

While all the compounds have run into difficulty, often because they are not sufficiently effective against the disease for which they were intended, they may still be useful against other diseases with shared biological pathways, the MRC points out.

The organisation has highlighted its ongoing collaboration with AstraZeneca, which began in 2011, as illustrating the potential of such sharing programmes.

The first human trials of a new treatment for chronic cough are underway in Manchester, to see whether an AstraZeneca drug designed originally to treat gastro-oesophageal reflux disease can be tweaked to treat chronic cough.

It was not found to be helpful in patients with heartburn who were already taking acid-blocking treatments – but when the compound was made available to researchers from the University of Manchester, they found that in half of people with chronic cough, the cough reflex is related to gastro-oesophageal reflux, and they are hopeful that it can help those patients.

In all, MRC says it has awarded £7 million to academic researchers for work into Alzheimer’s, cancer and rare diseases off the back of the AstraZeneca tie-up.

Adam Hill

 

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