BRIEF—MSD scientists get set to tackle diseases of aging at the Francis Crick Institute

One year on from the announcement to establish a new discovery science center in London, creating up to 150 new science roles, US pharma giant Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside of Canada and the USA, today announced that a new team of 15 discovery chemists and pharmacologists will be based at the Francis Crick Institute for the next five years researching diseases which affect the aging populations, including conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

The medicinal chemists and pharmacologists working on the discovery projects in the institute will add further capabilities to the MSD neuroscience cell biology team already established at the London Bioscience Innovation Centre. Eventually both teams of scientists will be based in MSD’s new state-of-the-art Discovery Centre in London.

The Crick will welcome the first of MSD’s scientists to be based there early next year and the close working proximity of the two organizations will further develop the fertile and progressive life sciences environment flourishing in the capital, providing new innovation opportunities to develop novel understandings of diseases which continue to prove difficult to manage in our growing elderly population. An example of this is dementia, which in 2015 affected over 850,000 people in the UK and cost the economy £23.6 billion ($29.6 million), yet there are currently no treatments which prevent or delay the disease.

Whilst MSD’s research will be separate to that of the Crick’s, the co-localization of basic research together with drug discovery will benefit both MSD and Crick scientists. MSD plan to establish translational research collaborations with Crick scientists. Under discussion is the possibility of enabling junior institute researchers to spend time both within the Crick laboratories as well as working with MSD. In addition discoveries made by Crick scientists may lead to innovative medicines of the future.

MSD is evaluating locations in London for the site of their new state-of-the-art discovery center and UK headquarters and hope to be able to provide an update on this soon.