AstraZeneca partners with Manchester University on improving drug delivery and efficacy

Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) has entered into a strategic collaboration with the University of Manchester to develop technology to enhance the way drugs work and deliver better health outcomes for patients.

Named the North West Centre for Advanced Drug Delivery, the collaboration will be housed in Manchester Pharmacy School and will have links to research groups at the university. Its remit is to deliver enhanced fundamental understanding of drug delivery systems including relevant aspects of biology and physiology in oncology and other therapeutic areas where AstraZeneca is developing products. The long-term goal is to deliver a portfolio of advanced drug delivery technologies for use with AstraZeneca’s drugs.

The collaboration will run for an initial period of five years, under the leadership of Nicola Tirelli from the university and Marcel de Matas from AstraZeneca. This is the second collaboration between the Manchester Pharmacy School and AstraZeneca to be running simultaneously, as scientists from the quantitative clinical pharmacology organization at AstraZeneca have joined with academics from the school to form a modelling and simulation center.