AstraZeneca collaborates with Harvard Stem Cell Institute on beta cells

Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) has entered into a five-year research collaboration with the Harvard Stem Cell institute to adapt a technique to create human beta cells from stem cells.

This would be used in screens of AstraZeneca’s compound library in the search for new treatments for diabetes. The collaboration is also aiming to better understand how the function of beta cells declines in diabetes, and research findings will be made available to the broader scientific community in peer-reviewed publications.

AstraZeneca will provide funding for a team of investigators at Harvard Stem Cell Institute led by Doug Melton, HSCI co-chairman and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, as well as establishing a dedicated in-house team in Mölndal, Sweden. No financial terms of the accord were disclosed.