Wyeth Joins With Scots In Translational Medicine

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and the Health Ministry of Scotland have formed the Translational Medicine Research Collaboration. With the support of Scotland's National Health Service (NHS) and its economic development agency, Scottish Enterprise, TMRC will combine efforts at Wyeth with those of four Scottish medical universities.

Scottish Enterprise says it will invest $30 million in the collaboration; Wyeth will contribute $57 million in the first five years and has an option to continue funding over another five years.

Translational medicine is a new field that attempts to integrate drug R&D and patient outcome to create new, more personalized therapies and diagnostics. Several major drug companies have set up translational medicine programs to increase the information flow between their R&D and clinical programs in an attempt to improve productivity in both areas.

"This translational medicine research collaboration represents a truly novel concept in industry-academic-government partnership," says Frank S. Walsh, Wyeth executive vice president and head of discovery research, in announcing the deal. "Translational medicine is a key success factor to development of the next generation of innovative medicines."

TMRC will include a central laboratory at the University of Dundee that will work with centers of excellence at Dundee and universities in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. The program is expected to create 50 new jobs at the central lab and as many as 120 overall. Specialized clinical research programs will be set up at each of the universities' medical schools, building on an existing clinical research network across the four universities and NHS.

TMRC's goals include the identification of biomarkers. These biological or chemical indicators can help identify groups of patients that may respond best to a given treatment. The researchers intend to use biomarkers to follow the progress and response of patients in specialized clinical trials conducted in Scotland. The trials are expected to facilitate new drug development in areas such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, depression, and osteoporosis.