Date: 2012-04-24
Type of information: R&D agreement
Compound: novel treatments and biomarkers for rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases
Company: Novo Nordisk (Denmark) Oxford University (UK)
Therapeutic area: Autoimmune diseases – Inflammatory diseases - Rheumatic diseases
Type agreement:
Action mechanism:
Disease: rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases
Details: Novo Nordisk and the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at Oxford University jointly announced a new partnership to develop promising new drug candidates and identify novel biomarkers and treatment targets for rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune inflammatory diseases.Novo Nordisk aims to combine its clinical development strengths with those of the Kennedy Institute to increase the odds to successfully develop novel treatment regimens. The Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology is renowned for having made breakthroughs in the understanding of the biological pathways that lead to rheumatoid arthritis, which has had a major impact on the treatment of autoimmune inflammatory disease. Professor Sir Marc Feldmann, Head of the Institute, together with his colleague Sir Ravinder Maini, discovered the efficacy of anti-tumour necrosis factor or anti-TNF treatment, a class of drugs used as the current standard of care for moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune inflammatory diseases.
The Institute focuses on translational research techniques, including the novel use of diseased human tissue to validate new drug targets as tractable avenues for the treatment of autoimmune inflammatory diseases, and also the identification of specific biomarkers of disease that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of new interventions in a range of patient populations.
Novo Nordisk will fund 10 Oxford researchers at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology to work within the partnership. A Joint steering committee with members from both parties, including Per Falk and Professor Feldmann, will oversee the partnership and assess research proposals from scientists at both organisations.
Financial terms:
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