Duke University Enters Into Research, Drug Development Partnership With Jubilant Organosys

Duke University and Jubilant Organosys, through its subsidiary, Jubilant Biosys, have signed a Letter of Intent to develop a multi-faceted partnership that will expedite translation of discoveries by Duke scientists into clinical therapies.

The proposed partnership will also advance both organisations’ mutual commitment to reducing global health disparities. The parties shall complete definitive agreements by the first quarter of 2010.

Under the terms of the proposed partnership, Duke and Jubilant will work towards jointly selecting and managing a portfolio of translational research projects that leverages expertise and thought leadership from Duke University scientists and development capabilities including funding from Jubilant.

The parties shall commit to work together over a period of five years with the objective of developing a portfolio of 4-5 technologies at steady state over the period of collaboration.

The non-exclusive collaboration will apply Jubilant’s demonstrated and proprietary portfolio of drug development capabilities toward discoveries made by the faculty of the Duke University School of Medicine.

Both parties intend to monetise successful technologies by licensing or partnering as appropriate and receive milestones/royalties. Royalties paid to Duke would be churned back into support of promising faculty discovery research and further investments in translational technologies.

Victor Dzau, CEO and chancellor for health affairs at Duke, said: “This project and relationship will further the shared commitments of Duke Medicine and Jubilant to innovative translational medicine strategies and brings together incredibly strong complementary expertise in science and research & development.”

Shyam Bhartia, chairman, managing director and Hari Bhartia, co-chairman and managing director for Jubilant Organosys, said: “This partnership is a continued demonstration of Jubilant’s global partnering efforts to identify and deliver affordable and enabling innovation and health care solution to the global pharmaceutical industry and patients worldwide.

“Duke Medicine is the ideal academic health sciences partner for us to pursue our intent of building a world-class research capability as an overlay to our network of healthcare facilities that provide high quality, low cost care for economically weaker section and rural communities in India.”

Jubilant and Duke will collaborate on two innovative biomarker studies to be conducted in Kolkata, India. One will be the development of a cohort to gain insights into the clinical and molecular characteristics of several chronic diseases highly prevalent in the Indian population and to better understand these diseases in the context of transitioning rural to urban populations.

The second study will validate in an Indian population, with heart disease and diabetes, metabolomic biomarker signatures found to be associated with insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease in Caucasian populations. Jubilant will fund the pilot phase of these studies in India.