The University of Michigan and Sun Pharma Advanced Research Co. have launched a partnership to accelerate the development of potential new medicines for a wide range of diseases.
The new venture will provide up to $10 million in financial support and in-kind industry resources to move various promising drug-discovery research projects within the university toward the ultimate goal of new therapies for patients.
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The partnership agreement between U-M and Sun Pharma Advanced Research was signed Jan. 8.
Working with Michigan Drug Discovery, SPARC will support projects selected from across U-M’s broad research enterprise, with a focus on early stage translational therapeutic work in the areas of oncology, neurodegeneration, inflammation, dermatology, and ophthalmology.
“This new partnership will greatly enhance the suite of opportunities available to campus researchers through Michigan Drug Discovery,” said Peter Toogood, director of MDD, the universitywide collaboration to provide funding and mentoring for U-M faculty members’ drug discovery projects.
“With this new funding, research support and drug-development expertise from SPARC, U-M is strongly positioned to help its researchers advance their discoveries toward marketable medicines and technologies to improve human health.”
The partnership has the potential to maximize the impact of the two organizations’ strengths, said Roger Cone, a member of the Michigan Drug Discovery executive committee and director of U-M’s Life Sciences Institute, the administrative home of MDD.
“Major research universities like U-M have enormous expertise in the biology and fundamental research that pharmaceutical companies seek, and the pharmaceutical industry has the large-scale chemistry resources needed to turn new discoveries into marketable drugs,” he said. “This alliance helps bridge a major gap in the path from the research bench to clinics and patients.”
“The innovative drug discovery and development taking place across the University of Michigan has enormous potential to improve human health,” said Anil Raghavan, chief executive officer of SPARC. “We are confident that, by partnering with Michigan Drug Discovery, we can help such pioneering approaches reach that goal.”
Each selected project will have the potential to receive a value up to $1.5 million over a three-year period, including in-kind support in areas such as medicinal chemistry and preclinical development.
The new partnership will offer two funding competitions per year for U-M faculty. The first competition cycle is currently open and can be accessed through the Michigan Drug Discovery website.
Through grants of up to $75,000, MDD enables early-stage work such as high-throughput screening, structural biology, medicinal chemistry, natural products development and pharmacokinetics in core labs on campus.
SPARC is a pharmaceutical company focused on improving standards of care for patients globally through innovation in therapeutics and delivery.
