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Monday, 8 February 2010 06:00 GMT
Cancer charity teams up with AstraZeneca in new therapy drive
LONDON, Feb 8 (APM) - The UK's largest cancer charity is joining forces with AstraZeneca to develop new cancer therapies which specifically starve the disease's cells.
Cancer Research UK's commercialisation and development arm, Cancer Research Technology (CRT), described in a Sunday statement the tie-up as a "major, multi-project alliance".
It said the three-year partnership will work on a portfolio of projects chosen by CRT from Cancer Research UK's portfolio of biological research in the emerging field of cancer metabolism.
Cancer metabolism research seeks to explain why cancer cells use energy differently to normal cells to survive and grow, particularly under the conditions of nutrient and hypoxic stress faced by rapidly growing tumours.
New drugs that control a cell's metabolism could attack an "Achilles heel" of the tumour while sparing normal tissues, CRT added.
The alliance team of 30 scientists will work at CRT's laboratories in London and Cambridge and AstraZeneca's cancer research centre near Manchester in north west England.
They will try to develop small molecules which attempt to target the changes to a cell's metabolism - attempting to deprive cancer cells of the nutrients they need to grow and survive.
RISK SHARING
AstraZeneca will take the most promising projects forward into pre-clinical and clinical development - through a model for sharing the risks and potential rewards in creating new cancer treatments.
CRT said it will receive milestone payments and royalties on the projects that AstraZeneca takes into clinical development, although it did not provide financial details.
Its chief executive Dr Keith Blundy said the alliance was a "major milestone in the development of CRT's Discovery Laboratories which have been created to advance early stage cancer discoveries to a point where they are attractive to commercial collaborators".
Blundy said that increasing evidence shows that cancer metabolism is an exciting area of research. He said it is now clear that cancer cells produce and use oxygen and energy very differently to normal cells, "which presents us with an opportunity to find new ways to control these processes".
"We're confident that the scale and breadth of this project - which should see us progressing around five projects at any one time - will yield many exciting results in the years to come."
Dr Les Hughes, global vice president of cancer research at AstraZeneca, said: "This deal with CRT will enable us to speed up research in this exciting area by pairing AstraZeneca's drug discovery and development capabilities with CRT's expertise in identifying and progressing new targets selected from Cancer Research UK's basic research portfolio."
Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research UK's chief executive said the next generation of cancer treatments will be targeted to specific biological mechanisms that are fundamentally different between cancer and normal cells.
"Cancer metabolism is one such area and this alliance recognises the global excellence of Cancer Research UK's expertise in uncovering these important mechanisms. It's going to vastly improve and expand our knowledge, enabling a team of talented scientists to come together to find new drugs."
Kumar said that investing in partnership with pharmaceutical companies in the discovery and development of new cancer drugs will help Cancer Research UK to accelerate progress towards its goal of finding new treatments for cancer patients.
The tie-up strengthens a long-established relationship between the two organisations. In an interview with APM in January (see APM Jan 14), CRTs director of business development Phil L'Huillier cited AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline as major collaborators with CRT, as well as Germany's Merck Serono.
He said Cancer Research UK had "a process to work closely with the 40 largest oncology companies and build quite close relationships with them so we can talk to them about our opportunities".
nh/hlc
[18019] 08/02/2010 06:00 GMT - CANCER
Cancer Research UK's commercialisation and development arm, Cancer Research Technology (CRT), described in a Sunday statement the tie-up as a "major, multi-project alliance".
It said the three-year partnership will work on a portfolio of projects chosen by CRT from Cancer Research UK's portfolio of biological research in the emerging field of cancer metabolism.
Cancer metabolism research seeks to explain why cancer cells use energy differently to normal cells to survive and grow, particularly under the conditions of nutrient and hypoxic stress faced by rapidly growing tumours.
New drugs that control a cell's metabolism could attack an "Achilles heel" of the tumour while sparing normal tissues, CRT added.
The alliance team of 30 scientists will work at CRT's laboratories in London and Cambridge and AstraZeneca's cancer research centre near Manchester in north west England.
They will try to develop small molecules which attempt to target the changes to a cell's metabolism - attempting to deprive cancer cells of the nutrients they need to grow and survive.
RISK SHARING
AstraZeneca will take the most promising projects forward into pre-clinical and clinical development - through a model for sharing the risks and potential rewards in creating new cancer treatments.
CRT said it will receive milestone payments and royalties on the projects that AstraZeneca takes into clinical development, although it did not provide financial details.
Its chief executive Dr Keith Blundy said the alliance was a "major milestone in the development of CRT's Discovery Laboratories which have been created to advance early stage cancer discoveries to a point where they are attractive to commercial collaborators".
Blundy said that increasing evidence shows that cancer metabolism is an exciting area of research. He said it is now clear that cancer cells produce and use oxygen and energy very differently to normal cells, "which presents us with an opportunity to find new ways to control these processes".
"We're confident that the scale and breadth of this project - which should see us progressing around five projects at any one time - will yield many exciting results in the years to come."
Dr Les Hughes, global vice president of cancer research at AstraZeneca, said: "This deal with CRT will enable us to speed up research in this exciting area by pairing AstraZeneca's drug discovery and development capabilities with CRT's expertise in identifying and progressing new targets selected from Cancer Research UK's basic research portfolio."
Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research UK's chief executive said the next generation of cancer treatments will be targeted to specific biological mechanisms that are fundamentally different between cancer and normal cells.
"Cancer metabolism is one such area and this alliance recognises the global excellence of Cancer Research UK's expertise in uncovering these important mechanisms. It's going to vastly improve and expand our knowledge, enabling a team of talented scientists to come together to find new drugs."
Kumar said that investing in partnership with pharmaceutical companies in the discovery and development of new cancer drugs will help Cancer Research UK to accelerate progress towards its goal of finding new treatments for cancer patients.
The tie-up strengthens a long-established relationship between the two organisations. In an interview with APM in January (see APM Jan 14), CRTs director of business development Phil L'Huillier cited AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline as major collaborators with CRT, as well as Germany's Merck Serono.
He said Cancer Research UK had "a process to work closely with the 40 largest oncology companies and build quite close relationships with them so we can talk to them about our opportunities".
nh/hlc
[18019] 08/02/2010 06:00 GMT - CANCER
