The agreement supports a multi-year relationship aiming to make efficient use of the best scientific expertise from both Columbia University Medical Center and AstraZeneca to find optimal treatments for patients with these diseases as quickly as possible.
The preclinical and clinical research will focus on discovering mechanisms and identifying new biological targets for intervention that have the potential of being starting points for successful and commercially viable treatments to tackle these diseases that are major risk factors for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.
Jan Lundberg, executive vice president of discovery research at AstraZeneca, said: “With this being our first metabolic related disease research collaboration with a US academic medical centre, we are very excited to be teaming up with such a distinguished and like-minded partner who shares our commitment to pursuing novel medical solutions to tackle these diseases where the unmet medical need is so great.”