Mouths

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has signed its first agreement with the University to optimise the early clinical development of new GSK medicines for obesity and addictive disorders.

Sometimes drug development needs to cut across traditional boundaries, and the development of drugs that act on the brain to deliver health benefits in terms of reduced body weight is a good example,

Ed Bullmore

The ground-breaking concept of the ‘Academic Incubator’ will tap into the highest quality thinking in academia to optimise the early clinical development of new GSK medicines in a model of shared risk and reward. The new agreement provides a framework for a team of academic experts led by Professors Ed Bullmore, Barry Everitt, Trevor Robbins, Paul Fletcher and Stephen O’Rahilly, from the Departments of Psychiatry and Experimental Psychology and the Institute of Metabolic Science, to develop a novel centrally acting agent with therapeutic potential for obesity and addictive disorders.

"Sometimes drug development needs to cut across traditional boundaries, and the development of drugs that act on the brain to deliver health benefits in terms of reduced body weight is a good example," said Professor Bullmore. "The University has established expertise in both neuroscience and metabolic science and, importantly, there is already a strong track record of interdisciplinary research between these groups. This was particularly attractive to GSK as a scientific environment to support the innovative development of centrally acting anti-obesity drugs."

Although Cambridge is the first academic institution to pioneer the incubator model of working with GSK, it is not expected to be the only one if the model proves successful here. Clinicians and scientists at carefully selected academic institutions worldwide will be expected to challenge industry norms and set a unique path for preclinical and early clinical development activities that will deliver on the promise of an asset at the earliest stage. Importantly, the agreement also allows the academic scientists freedom to publish results arising from their work on incubator projects.

‘This puts academia–industry relationships on a new footing and allows academics who are leaders in their fields the opportunity to become directly involved in developing medicines for patients and to have the freedom to take the programme in exciting new directions,’ said Patrick Vallance, Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery at GSK. In support of all its incubator projects, GSK will provide operational support, access to in-house clinical research and imaging facilities, and background preclinical data on the drug. For incubator projects based in Cambridge, an important component of GSK’s support for the academic teams will be provided by the facilities and staff of GSK’s Clinical Unit Cambridge. The Unit is embedded in the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in close physical proximity to departments of the School of Clinical Medicine and the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility.

Patrick Sissons, Regius Professor of Physic and Head of the School of Clinical Medicine in Cambridge, said: "We place great value on our relationship with GSK and are delighted to be working with them in this innovative new partnership between leading clinical scientists in the University and industry."

For more information, please contact Professor Ed Bullmore (etb23@cam.ac.uk).


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.