Medical Researchers Granted Access to Compounds

Following a landmark agreement between the Medical Research Council(MRC) and AstraZeneca., academic  researchers can access 22 of the company’s compounds with a view to exploring new treatment opportunities.

Drug development is a long, complex and expensive process – the average sector cost of bringing a new medicine to market was more than £630 million last year. Many compounds which have potential to treat or prevent a specific disease can reach the early trials stage on the drug development route but are then put on hold for a variety of reasons.

As part of the collaboration with AstraZeneca, the MRC is inviting research proposals from across the UK academic community to use the compounds in new areas. The MRC will judge and select the best scientific proposals and award up to £10 million in total to fund research across a broad range of human diseases.

David Brennan, AstraZeneca’s Chief Executive Officer said: “Innovative collaborations are playing a crucial role in finding ways to unlock the potential of new treatments. The UK has a strong heritage of research excellence in life sciences. We hope that in sharing these valuable compounds with academic scientists through the MRC, new discoveries will be made by exploring additional uses of these compounds.”

David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, said: “This landmark agreement is a real boost for British  science. It will give our world-leading research base new insights into disease and encourage the development of groundbreaking new treatments. This will keep the UK at the very forefront of biomedical research and drive growth and innovation in our life sciences industry.”

Simon Denegri, Chair of INVOLVE, the UK's national advisory group on public involvement, said: “This collaboration is exciting news, not just for scientists but for patients as well. Although it may take some time to unearth their true potential, these compounds could hold the key to a better understanding of a whole range of diseases including rarer

conditions and may lay the foundations for the treatments of tomorrow.I hope we’ll look back on this day as a  landmark moment, which set the tone for industry and academia collaborations of the future and a huge step towards medical discoveries that will improve the lives of millions of people.”