GSK plans partnerships with academia to develop new drugs

The idea is to work closely with external medical researchers up until the launch of a new drug which will allow GSK to tap their expertise in return of providing them with facilities, funding and incentives, the Financial Times reported.

Unlike big drug companies which often license ideas from universities and take full control later, GSK wants to work collaboratively with medical authorities who prefer to remain in academia rather than be directly recruited to biotech companies.

Financial Times quoted GSK senior vice president for drug discovery and development Patrick Vallance as saying that the company wants a model that allows academics to work all the way through, and get a big reward if a medicine is launched and playing to their strengths.

Recently, GSK has entered in to an agreement with Royal Free and University College Medical School in London professor Mark Pepys’ company Pentraxin Therapeutics to develop a treatment for a rare form of amyloidosis.

As part of the agreement, Pentraxin gets a small upfront fee allowing GSK to gain an exclusive licence on the patents Pepys has filed on his experimental drug.