Under the memorandum of understanding (MoU), AstraZeneca and the Singapore institutions will be entering into a collaborative agreement that spans both clinical and pre-clinical development activities.
Under the terms of the clinical development collaboration, two of Singapore’s research institutions – the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS) and National University Hospital (NUH) – will be given access to AstraZeneca compounds which have already undergone initial clinical testing in the West.
For both clinical and pre-clinical activities, AstraZeneca retains the option to assume further development and marketing of all drugs made available as part of the partnership deal.
The collaboration aims to further build AstraZeneca’s drug development capabilities in Asia and ultimately speed up access to new medicines of potential benefit to patients with inoperable hepatocellular carcinoma.
The partnership also includes a training program placement with the Manchester Cancer Research Centre, with whom AstraZeneca has a formal research alliance. Supported in part by the Singapore Economic Development Board, the training program seeks to train a pool of clinical research professionals for both private-sector and public-sector research labs.