Date: 2012-09-06
Type of information: R&D agreement
Compound:
Company: Boehringer Ingelheim (Germany) ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
Therapeutic area: Metabolic diseases
Type agreement: R&D
Action mechanism:
Disease: diabetes, obesity
Details: Boehringer Ingelheim, the Institute of Molecular Health Science and the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health of the ETH Zurich will collaborate to achieve new insights into the development of diabetes and obesity. The joint effort will focus on investigating three cell types that may contribute to the onset of diseases such as obesity and diabetes because of their dominant role in metabolic homoeostasis. With this four-year, industry-academia collaboration, Boehringer Ingelheim will further strengthen its efforts to translate basic scientific findings into more effective treatments of human diseases.
As partners, Boehringer Ingelheim and the ETH Zurich will work together to enhance the knowledge of these diseases. The aim is to enable the discovery and development of innovative treatments that have the potential to improve the therapy as well as the discovery of novel biomarkers and diagnostic tools that may contribute to better monitoring and planning of therapeutic interventions for diabetes and obesity.
The partners have defined four initial research projects which are expected to shed light on the link between preclinical findings from the laboratory or from investigational treatments and the progression of the disease in patients. The projects range from the exploration of the function of surface proteins and signaling pathways of neuroendocrine cells in the pancreatic islets and the intestine to the exploration of brown fat tissue development. Results from these studies may either facilitate the design of new drug candidates for clinical testing, enable researchers to design better clinical trials for potential new drugs, or optimize the application of medical treatments in order to maximize clinical benefit in specific patient populations.
The research collaboration takes advantage of the pioneering work previously performed by the groups of Professor Markus Stoffel and Professor Christian Wolfrum, and will further advance the selected projects in a true partnership.
Financial terms:
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