The Burrill Report


The National Institutes of Health is moving ahead with plans to establish a new center intended to help translate basic scientific discoveries into new drugs. A recommendation for establishing the NIH’s new center was approved in a 12 to 1 vote during a meeting of the Institute’s Scientific Management Review Board held December 7.

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, championed by NIH director Francis Collins, would respond in part to concerns that the government hasn’t generated enough of a return on its investment in basic research, translating too few federally funded basic biomedical discoveries into new drugs.

At the same time the rising cost of drug development and increasing focus on late-stage, big-market drugs has made it harder for private sector drug developers to attract the investment necessary to fund early-stage tests of promising compounds.

Collins, in an interview in May with the journal Science, noted that NIH’s translational goals get a lot of traction with Congress and the public. He talked about a willingness to put forward bold initiatives with significant resources to prevent and treat disease. “We really are at a critical juncture as far as moving basic science discoveries into the clinic in ways that we couldn't have five or six years ago,” he said.

How much funding the NIH will supply the new center isn’t yet known. However, at least part of its funding would likely come from money dedicated to existing programs that would be folded into the new entity, such as the Molecular Libraries Program, a small molecule screening and organization effort, and the Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases Program.

Collins will now present a detailed plan for the new center to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who will present it to Congress, which will have 180 days to object before tacitly approving formation of the new center in 2011.




December 10, 2010
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-drug_discovery_center_wins_nih_approval.html