Seven pharma firms have teamed up with several universities and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to launch a new platform to help drug discovery.
Backed by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), the European Lead Factory will act as library of small molecules, consisting of at least 300,000 substances contributed by the pharma companies involved, while an additional 200,000 compounds are expected to be developed by SMEs and academic institutions during the five-year project.
These two libraries will be accessible to all project partners, which include Bayer Healthcare, AstraZeneca, Lundbeck, Janssen, Merck KGaA, Sanofi and UCB, as well as to public organisations who offer promising new targets for drug discovery screening.
These screenings will occur at a new European centre in Scotland as well as at high throughput screening facilities to be located in the Netherlands.
The European Lead Factory will receive €196m in funding, including €80m in financial support from the European Commission, €91m from the pharma companies involved and €25m from the other participants.
“This unique project is an excellent example of how a public-private partnership can transform the way in which the pharmaceutical sector identifies new medicines,” said Michael Goldman, executive director of the IMI – a partnership between the EC and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), which funds innovative projects.
He continued: “For the first time, it will give European researchers unprecedented access to industry chemical collections and facilitate the translation of their findings into actual treatments for patients.”
The project was initiated by Bayer Healthcare and the company is also due to coordinate its activities.
It follows a continuing trend in pharma to move towards a more open form of research and innovation, as seen with recent efforts from GSK in tuberculosis and a wider open innovation platform launched by Lilly.
According to the IMI, if the project proves successful during its initial five year funding period, it could have a more sustainable role in medicines research in Europe.
In addition to the pharma companies involved, other partners in the European Lead Factory include BioCity Scotland, Taros Chemicals, ChemAxon, the University of Dundee, the University of Groningen and the University of Oxford.