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MONTREAL, Nov. 18, 2015 /CNW/ - AbbVie today announced its continued commitment to the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) by providing a cash sponsorship of CDA$7.5 million towards open access research leading to the discovery of new medicines. Today`s announcement coincides with meetings with Ontario and Quebec-based research leaders and AbbVie global research and development business development professionals to assess continued investment.
Ponatinib is an anti-cancer drug which has earned some notoriety for its cost (£90,000 per patient per year) and side-effects that were serious enough to temporarily suspend its use. But the findings from a recent Cell Chemistry and Biology paper led by the Structural Genomics Consortium suggest that this 'dirty' drug might actually hold the key for coming up with newer, more effective drugs for chronic illnesses such as Crohn's and Inflammatory Bowel Disease. The Oxford Science Blog asked the first author, Dr Peter Canning (who worked on this study while at the Nuffield Department of Medicine) to explain what they found.
The SGC is engaged in dozens of collaborations with small companies to explore novel technologies. In keeping with the SGC’s open-access policy, all outputs from these collaboration are made publicly available without restriction on use. As announced today, the SGC in Oxford is collaborating with C4X to discover chemical tools for epigenetic targets. C4X will use its unique ligand conformation analysis technology to design potent inhibitors that will be tested at the SGC and rapidly made available to the public.
Through a novel open source approach the molecule has been made freely available to the cancer research community to help discover new therapeutic strategies for cancer patients sooner.
Professors Markus Perkmann from Imperial College London and Henri Schildt of Aalto University School of Business report on their findings in the journal Research Policy on managing open data partnerships and the role of boundary organizations such as the SGC.
Open data partnerships between firms and universities: The role of boundary organizations
Markus Perkmanna & Henri Schildt
Research Policy Volume 44, Issue 5, June 2015, Pages 1133–1143
