Pharma Company, Institute Seek Alzheimer’s Targets

(National Institute of Drug Abuse)

Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in La Jolla, California and Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. (OMJPI) in Titusville, New Jersey said today they formed a partnership to discover compounds for Alzheimer’s disease and other psychiatric disorders. Under the agreement, joint Sanford-Burnham and OMJPI teams will identify and validate new targets for drug discovery, leading to compounds suitable for further development by OMJPI.

OMJPI gains from the deal exclusive access for three years to a Sanford-Burnham’s scientists and translational research facilities  for discovering new approaches to treating patients neurological and psychiatric conditions. Sanford-Burnham will receive upfront and yearly access fees, funding of discovery research in the field, milestone payments, and royalties for successfully developed products. The parties did not reveal the amount of funding involved.

A joint steering committee will oversee the project, including a team funded by OMJPI in the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics (CPCCG) at Sanford-Burnham. CPCCG is Sanford-Burnham’s screening facility established by National Institutes of Health as part of a national effort to accelerate the rate of commercialization of basic research by generating small molecule probes that can be used to develop a pipeline of drugs to treat unmet medical needs.

Read more: Partnership to Identify Targets for Neurological Diseases

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