The University and Lilly, an outstanding pharmaceutical company, have signed an agreement to research new molecules and compounds for drugs which can fill the uncovered medical needs. This agreement is enshrined in the program Open Innovation Drug Discovery (OIDD:https://openinnovation.lilly.com/dd/), designed by Lilly and presented on September 2011.
The main researcher and professor Santos Fustero will develop the synthetic methodology and will prepare several new molecules designed by Lilly. These compounds are similar to those provided by him to the programme PD2, nowadays within the OIDD programme. Depending on the pharmacological profile these new molecules will have, Lilly will decide their possible development and further research studies.
‘The collaboration between Lilly and the University of Valencia confirms the potential of the public research in reinforcing the biotechnological industry’, states Javier García, vice-president of business development of Lilly. ‘Through this kind of agreements, we want to change drastically researching at universities focusing it in achieving innovation, thus creating opportunities to develop business in the future’, García concludes.
The collaboration between the business and the academic world in Spain has been through difficult moments in the last years, so it is necessary to provide it with incentives. The project PD2 presented by Lilly is an encouraging and almost unique initiative to promote innovation through research agreements between university groups and pharmaceutical companies’, affirmed professor Santos Fustero.
The Open Innovation Drug Discovery platform aims to make the research of new drugs which can fill the uncovered medical needs easier. It is made of three components (https://openinnovation.lilly.com/dd/science-of-open-innovation/strategic-areas-of-interest.html). PD2 analyzes the molecules sent to the programme through phenotypic units of relevant illnesses. The agreement with the University is enshrined in this project.
Target D2 (target drug discovery) is a new initiative with which Lilly aims to expand the access both to biological tests on validated therapeutic targets and to a computational methods of relevant assessment. This programme helps in assessing the molecules presented and in designing, selecting and optimizing the new compounds. These compounds would interact with specific biologic targets possibly involved in some diseases.
More information on Lilly available on www.lilly.com
Last update: 17 de november de 2011 10:28.
News release
