Bayer leads massive industry/academia consortium for colon cancer research

OncoTrack, an international consortium of over 60 scientists, managed by Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, part of Germany’s Bayer AG (BAY: DE), and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, has launched one of Europe’s largest collaborative academic-industry research projects to develop and assess novel approaches for identification of new markers for colon cancer.

The unique five-year project, Methods for systematic next generation oncology biomarker development, brings together top scientists from European academic institutions with a wide range of expertise, and partners them with pharmaceutical companies.

The project is funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a public-private partnership between the pharmaceutical industry (via the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, EFPIA) and the European Union (represented by the European Commission). The IMI's innovative funding scheme has a budget of 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) from the EU’s Seventh Framework Program. That amount will be matched by in kind contributions of at least another 1 billion euros from the EFPIA member companies.