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 Novartis announced the Novartis-Berkeley Center for Proteomics and
Chemistry Technologies on Thursday. It did not give financial
details but said the multi-year deal targets "undruggable illnesses"
like cancers that have eluded treatments.
Basel-based Novartis hopes Berkeley scientists including Daniel
Nomura, the professor who runs the lab, will speed its search for
the Achilles' heels of hard-to-treat diseases.
"I do believe this chemistry provides a shortcut to really difficult
targets," said Jay Bradner, who moved from Harvard University last
year to head the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research in
Cambridge, Mass.
"I expect within three years we will have identified suitable
candidates for definitive drug development."
Academic tie-ups have produced some of Novartis's biggest triumphs.
Some two decades ago, its scientists teamed with Oregon Health &
Science University researchers on Gleevec, the blood cancer drug
that became Novartis's top seller.
In August, Novartis won approval for Kymriah, a first-of-its-kind
gene-modifying immunotherapy for leukemia pioneered by University of
Pennsylvania scientists.
Drug companies have big incentives to improve drug discovery
efforts.
Returns on R&D investment at the top 12 drug companies were just 3.7
percent in 2016, down from 10.1 percent in 2010, consultancy
Deloitte has said. Research costs are rising as insurers ratchet up
price pressure.
Meanwhile, old drugs like Gleevec have lost patent protection,
elevating Novartis's urgency to find new medicines to rejuvenate
sales not expected to grow until next year.
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Novartis just hired a chief digital officer to improve how it uses
data in drug discovery and development.
PROTEIN HOTSPOTS
In enlisting Nomura's lab, Novartis gets reinforcements to help find
elusive hotspots on the surfaces of proteins where drugs can latch
on and disrupt their role in fueling disease.
For Nomura, Novartis's deep pockets offer big opportunities.
"Novartis is opening up their internal resources to us... enabling
us to do things on a scale we couldn't accomplish in an academic
setting," Nomura said in an email, adding students will get an
up-close look at the industrial side of research.
Bradner said Novartis is seeking similar partnerships elsewhere in
academia.
"Drug discovery is not best performed secretly, in private and in
isolation," he said. "I am betting this team of blue sky
investigators in academia, paired with our ruthless drug hunters at
Novartis, will arrive at more creative, more brave and more
definitive solutions than either group on their own."
(Reporting by John Miller and Paul Arnold)
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