MRC awards £7m to 15 UK research projects
31 Oct 2012
The UK’s Medical Research Council (MRC) has announced £7m of funding through its collaboration with AstraZeneca.
The collaboration, which began in December 2011 as part of the Strategy for UK Life Sciences, provides academic researchers with unprecedented access to 22 chemical compounds.
These compounds can be used to support studies that investigate human mechanisms of disease and the development of potential therapeutic interventions.
Eight of the 15 research projects receiving funding will involve clinical (human) trials of potential new therapies. seven will focus on earlier work in laboratory and animal models.
The aim for AstraZeneca was to have the opportunity to engage with a larger section of the academic community across a range of disease areas that fall outside its core focus.
The biopharmaceutical sector is responding creatively to the challenge of getting more treatments to market
Before releasing them to academia, the group had conducted early trials of these compounds and validated their use for future research, but had put them on hold for further development.
Steve Bates, Chief Executive of the BioIndustry Association, said: “Today’s funding announcement signals the beginning of an exciting coming together of academia, industry and government to create new pathways to develop novel therapies for a range of serious conditions.
“The prospect of de-risking private investment in this way and supporting the development of these products for patients through innovative ways of working shows how the biopharmaceutical sector is responding creatively to the challenge of getting more treatments to market.”
The rights to intellectual property (IP) generated using the compounds will vary from project to project, but will be equitable and similar to those currently used in academically-led research.
AstraZeneca will retain its existing rights relating to the compounds and any new research findings by the academic institution will be owned by the academic institution.
The projects were awarded to: The University of Manchester, University of Leeds, Royal Veterinary College, University of Sheffield (two projects), UCL (University College London - three projects), University of Glasgow, University of Birmingham (two projects), University of Edinburgh, Imperial College London, University of Bristol, and the MRC Mammalian Genetics Unit, Harwell.
