Half
a dozen pharma firms are contributing £14.4 million to work by Dundee
University and the Medical Research Council (MRC) on speeding up drug
discovery.
AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen, Merck-Serono
and Pfizer are involved in a consortium called the Division of Signal
Transduction Therapy (DSTT), and will put in the money over four years from
July.
Part of one of the longest running pharma/academia partnerships, the
funding will back scientists’ early-stage research into therapy areas including
cancer, arthritis, lupus, hypertension and Parkinson’s disease, and secures 50
academic posts for the next four years.
The DSTT includes 15 research teams based at Dundee, 13 of whom are in the MRC
Protein Phosphorylation Unit and Scottish Institute for Cell Signalling
(SCILLS) at the College of Life Sciences - the world’s largest centre for the
study of kinases and the ubiquitin system.
Kinase drug discovery (which produced Novartis’ Glivec, for example)
accounts for a third of the R&D budget of the pharma industry and over half
of global cancer drug discovery.
Dundee is a magnet for life sciences funding at the moment, signing a
five-year deal in March with GSK to develop new drugs for neglected diseases,
supported by the Wellcome Trust.
The DSTT, however, goes back much further: founded in 1998, it has
attracted £50 million since it started and been renewed several times.
Professor Sir Philip Cohen, one of the consortium’s co-founders, says its
longevity “shows how valuable the collaboration has been for the pharmaceutical
industry”.
David Willetts, minister for universities and science, also hailed this
latest round of funding, saying it would continue the “excellent work taking
place at the University of Dundee on major global diseases, helping to bring
benefits for patients and the economy”.
Professor Dario Alessi, who will be the director of the DSTT from July,
said the university was committed to the translation of world-class basic science
for health and economic benefits.
“Renewal of this collaboration with six of the world’s leading
pharmaceutical companies is a vote of confidence in that strategy and in
Dundee's leadership position in biomedical research,” he added.