Date: 2012-03-27
Type of information: R&D agreement
Compound: understanding of disease mechanisms, identification of new drug targets and structural biology research and medicinal chemistry programs
Company: Bayer (Germany) Tsinghua University (China)
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Type agreement: R&D
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Details: Bayer HealthCare and Tsinghua University in Beijing are expanding their joint research partnership relating to the Bayer-Tsinghua Joint Research Center for Innovative Drug Discovery (BTC). This week, both partners signed a new strategic agreement to collaborate in the area of biomedical sciences over the next 3 years. "The Bayer-Tsinghua Joint Research Center for Innovative Drug Discovery has established itself as an interface to foster communication between leading experts from Tsinghua University’s Institute of Biomedicine and researchers from Bayer HealthCare,\" said Prof. Yuan Si, vice president of Tsinghua University. Headed by Dr. Shi Yigong, Professor and Dean of School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, multiple joint research projects have been initiated at the BTC which was established by Bayer HealthCare and Tsinghua University in 2009. The joint projects focus on different research aspects starting from early research programs to gain deeper understanding of disease mechanisms, identification of new drug targets and spanning further to joint structural biology research and medicinal chemistry programs. \"A new focus of our collaboration will be the area of structural biology, where scientists from Tsinghua University will work in close collaboration with Bayer scientists to solve the 3D protein structure of biological molecular targets as a basis for new drug discovery projects,\" said Dr. Shi, who also is a renowned structural biologist. To further strengthen the relationship between Bayer and Tsinghua University a Bayer endowed chair at the Tsinghua University - Institute of Biomedicine will be established in 2012. Dr. Dong Chen, with his remarkable scientific accomplishments and excellent reputation in immunology, will be honored the first chair. Bayer already has a record of successful partnerships involving academic institutions in China. One example of joint scientific projects is the research cooperation agreement signed in April 2001 with China\'s leading research institution, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The aim of this cooperation is to intensify academic exchange in research and development and to improve mutual access to each other’s excellent research facilities. Since then, Bayer has also entered into cooperation agreements with other academic institutions. At Tongji University in Shanghai, for example, the company sponsors a Chair for Intellectual Property Rights and a Chair for Sustainable Development, and at the China-Europe International Business School in Shanghai a Chair for Marketing and Strategy.
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