Projects supported by the fund are likely to involve scientists from the two organisations working side by side, either within the MRC LMB at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, the site of the company’s future strategic R&D centre and global corporate headquarters, or in AstraZeneca and MedImmune research facilities
As part of the planned collaboration, AstraZeneca would contribute up to approximately £6m ($10m) and MRC LMB up to approximately £3m ($5m) over a period of five years, as well as in-kind scientific input to share knowledge and technologies. Decisions on which projects will receive support from the fund will be made jointly by MRC LMB and AstraZeneca.
AstraZeneca Innovative Medicines and Early Development executive vice president Menelas Pangalos said that the aim of this joint fund will be to encourage truly innovative scientific thinking.
"We want to enable and encourage our scientists to push the boundaries of science, on the door step of our Cambridge headquarters, with one of the best scientific institutes in the world. Collaboration and scientific exchange are at the heart of AstraZeneca’s innovation-led strategy, and this new fund will support our researchers to do exactly that," Pangalos added.
Projects supported by the fund would be pre-competitive and would not be specifically targeted towards drug development, but would feed into the existing research and development activities of the two organisations, with the results published in peer reviewed journals.