UK drug giant GlaxoSmithKline
has hooked up with Yale University under a collaboration that will focus on
designing a potential new class of medicines. Under the discovery pact, GSK
scientists are putting their heads together with Yale researchers to build on
the latter's pioneering work with so-called proteolysis targeting chimeric
molecules (PROTACs).
PROTAC technology helps the
cellular destruction of disease-casuing proteins by leading them to a cell's
"garbage disposal" for culling.
Mutant or unusually high
levels of these proteins can be linked with disease progression in a number of
areas, such as oncology and inflammation, but as yet cannot be tackled by
traditional ways of making drugs, GSK notes.
With GSK's expertise in
medicinal chemistry the joint research team is hoping to have
proof-of-principle data in the bag by the end of this year, paving the way for
development of the technology into future medicines.
The terms of the deal grant
GSK the right to use PROTAC technology for multiple disease-causing proteins
across all therapy areas. In return, for each protein-degrading drug discovered
and developed, Yale will receive milestone and royalty payments.
First US deal for GSK
GSK has already formed such
risk-sharing type or arrangements with academic institutions in the UK, but
this its the first in the US, and is also notable for its scope around a
potential new class of medicines.
"This partnership is
exploring a new way for promising, but unproven therapeutic approaches to jump
from the academic lab more quickly into the early stage pharmaceutical
pipeline," said Kris Famm, head of GSK's Protein Degredation effort, who
will be leading the programme with Yale University's Professor Craig Crews.
"The relationship between
the pharmaceutical industry and academia is changing," Crew said, adding
that the collaboration "offers a new paradigm for how pharma companies and
academic researchers can benefit from working more closely together.
Pharmaceutical productivity
and research pipelines have thinned over the years, and increasingly drug
companies, including heavyweights like GSK and Pfizer, are hooking into
academia to tap into leading research and discovery that might become the next
generation of medicines.