Date: 2013-05-03
Type of information: Grant
Company: GSK (UK)
Investors: the Wellcome Trust (UK)
Amount: £5million (€ 5.92 million)
Funding type: grant
Planned used: The £5m Wellcome Trust funding will be used to take this open approach a significant step further, tackling the next phase of drug development with the aim of turning promising active compounds into high quality experimental drugs. The funding will provide the opportunity to progress the most promising projects underway by independent scientists at the Open Lab and from GSK’s own research portfolio.
Others: * On May 3, 2013, GSK has announced a funding injection of up to £5m from the Wellcome Trust to support its open approach to discovering and developing urgently needed new treatments for diseases of the developing world. The funding will move early-stage research to the next level, to find new medicines for diseases such as TB, malaria, Leishmaniasis and sleeping sickness. Scientists from around the world will work in collaboration with GSK drug discovery experts at its facility in Tres Cantos, Madrid – where GSK’s work researching diseases of the developing world is focused – with the overarching goal of developing two high-quality experimental drugs over the next five years.Scientists from around the world will work in collaboration with GSK drug discovery experts at its facility in Tres Cantos, Madrid – where GSK’s work researching diseases of the developing world is focused – with the overarching goal of developing two high-quality experimental drugs over the next five years. GSK has been committed to an open approach to discovering new treatments for diseases of the developing world since 2010, when it created its Open Lab. Here, external researchers can work on their early stage research alongside GSK scientists at a dedicated facility at Tres Cantos, Madrid, benefiting from GSK facilities, resources and knowledge to help them advance their own research projects. The Open Lab has, since its establishment, hosted 27 external researchers, who have worked alongside and been supported by GSK scientists on early-stage projects to identify compounds that are active against these diseases.
The majority of the early-stage research collaborations currently ongoing at GSK’s Open Lab are funded by the Tres Cantos Open Lab Foundation – an independent charity established by GSK in 2010 with £5m seed funding. In 2012 GSK doubled this funding to a total of £10m and it is hoped that with this, and other donations, a sustainable flow of around 10 high quality early stage drug discovery projects will be maintained at the Open Lab in the coming years. At present there are 12 active projects in the GSK Open Lab portfolio, investigating new treatments for diseases of the developing world including malaria and TB, as well as some of the more traditionally “neglected” diseases. For example, a researcher at NYU School of Medicine last year secured funding to carry out research in to new treatments for Chagas disease, using the Open Lab’s specialist screening facilities to identify specific compounds that inhibit the infection. The two medicines currently available to treat this disease are active only during the early stages of infection and have unpleasant side effects, so efforts such as this to identify longer lasting, more tolerable treatments are urgently needed.
Therapeutic area: Parasitic diseases - Infectious diseases
