Print“We believe that bringing together the ideas of many will help tackle global health challenges and accelerate the delivery of valuable medicines to patients, says Steve Yang.”
AstraZeneca has entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Health Industry Development Institute to establish an oncology research program to support 12 early-stage translational research projects by Korean investigators. The aim of the new program is to contribute to the development of new treatments for Korean cancer patients. Cancer is an area of serious unmet need in South Korea, the number one cause of death in the country with incidence growing rapidly.
Under the agreement, AstraZeneca in collaboration with KHIDI, will invite early-stage research project applications from oncology investigators based at research hospitals across the country. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
“This program is expected to make a great contribution to enhancing the new drug development capability of Korean investigators, and we hope that this effort of sharing know-how between Korean researchers and AstraZeneca will bear fruit in the form of new drugs that will benefit patients in the future,” says Keetaig Jung, head of KHIDI.
AstraZeneca’s virtual drug development unit Oncology iMed will review and select four pre-proposals by May 2014, which will each receive research funding from AstraZeneca through their respective institutes and gain priority access to a specified list of AstraZeneca compounds for pre-clinical testing, as part of AstraZeneca's open innovation platform. The successful researchers will also benefit from technological advice, collaboration and networking with AstraZeneca oncology scientists globally.
In an effort to ramp up R&D efforts, AstraZeneca launched it virtual drug development model iMed in 2012 to take advantage of a more open collaborative R&D that it hopes will be more efficient and speed the drug development process. Initially focused on neuroscience, the pharma is expanding the model into oncology with this agreement.
“We believe that bringing together the ideas of many will help tackle global health challenges and accelerate the delivery of valuable medicines to patients,” says Steve Yang, head of the pharma’s Asia and emerging markets innovative medicines group.
March 09, 2014
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-astrazeneca_partners_with_korean_health_institute.html
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