UK academia-pharma collaboration attracts £14.4 million funding

In the UK, the University of Dundee and the Medical Research Council (MRC) have announced new funding of over £14million ($22.6 million) from a consortium of six pharmaceutical companies for continuing research on the development of new drug treatments for major global diseases.

The consortium, called the Division of Signal Transduction Therapy (DSTT), includes six of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies - AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen Pharmaceutica (a unit of Johnson & Johnson), Merck Serono (the Pharmaceutical division of Merck KGaA) and Pfizer - and will provide core support of £14.4 million to the DSTT over the four-year period from July 2012 to 2016.

Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, said: “Collaboration between the life sciences industry and academia is vital for the development of new treatments and leverages significant private funding into our research base. This investment will continue the excellent work taking place at the University of Dundee on major global diseases, helping to bring benefits for patients and the economy.”