Accelerating global drug development the focus of new international alliance

London, UK and Vancouver, BC – A new international alliance has been formed with the goal of strengthening the international academic and/or not-for-profit drug development and commercialization network to ultimately improve the rate at which academic research is translated into new medicines. The Global Alliance of Leading Drug Discovery and Development Centres was announced at the Canadian High Commission in London UK today, where six of the world’s top translational health research centres announced they have come together to form the alliance.

The founding organizations are:

• The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD), Canada

• Lead Discovery Center (LDC), Germany

• The Scripps Research Institute, Scripps Florida, United States

• The Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3), KU Leuven R&D, Belgium

• Medical Research Council Technology, United Kingdom

• Cancer Research Technology, United Kingdom

All member organizations are fully integrated translational centres capable of professionally advancing drug discovery projects along the value chain from idea to drug candidate with proof-of-concept. Together, they represent close to 400 experienced drug developers collaborating with tens of thousands of academic scientists around the globe on over 165 highly innovative therapeutic projects targeting significant unmet medical needs. For the biopharmaceutical industry, they represent a major source of innovation. Numerous alliances with many of the industry’s leading global companies have been established to develop resulting drug candidates further and ultimately make them available to patients.

Through this alliance, member organizations will collaborate on mutually beneficial projects, share best practices, expertise and resources, and develop common standards and performance measurements – ultimately working together to improve the conversion of global early-stage technology into much needed therapies.

“We see a multitude of translational research initiatives around the world, but until now, these have for the most part, worked in isolation of one another,” says Karimah Es Sabar, president and CEO of CDRD. “This alliance will be a powerful vehicle in bringing such organizations together, leveraging one another’s strengths, and ultimately making for a much more effective global translational research environment.”