Canadian, German research centres sign commercialization agreement

Vancouver, BC and Dortmund, Germany – Two drug discovery and development organizations – Canada’s Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) and Germany’s Lead Discovery Center (LDC) – have signed a partnership agreement to enable joint development of promising innovations from their networks. The agreement includes sharing infrastructure and expertise from both organizations’ drug development platforms to support their shared objective of successfully translating basic research into high-quality commercial opportunities.

Both CDRD and LDC were established in response to the recognition that it has become more and more difficult in recent years to commercialize academic health research. The two use their own state-of-art facilities and highly specialized business and scientific expertise as well as broader research networks to advance innovative drug discovery projects from their affiliated research institutions. In doing so, they bridge the innovation and commercialization gap between academia and industry.

CDRD supports the commercialization of research from academic institutions across Canada, and LDC is affiliated with Germany’s Max Planck Institutes.

“At CDRD, we recognize that achieving our vision of transforming the culture of scientific innovation and commercialization impacting human health requires partnerships between industry and academia on a global scale. We are therefore extremely pleased to be able to expand our international alliances by establishing this formal working relationship with a world-class and highly-respected organization such as LDC,” says Karimah Es Sabar, CDRD’s senior vice president, business & strategic affairs. “By adding LDC as an important and accomplished international partner, we are taking another step toward realizing CDRD’s mission of transforming scientific innovation into commercial opportunities globally.”