AstraZeneca Plans Lab With U.K. NonpProfit

AstraZeneca and the Medical Research Council, a U.K.-based nonprofit, will create a joint research facility at AstraZeneca’s new R&D headquarters, now under construction in Cambridge, England. The AstraZeneca MRC U.K. Centre for Lead Discovery, expected to be completed in 2016, will enable scientists from MRC to use the big pharma firm’s compound library and collaborate with its high-throughput screening group. MRC will select up to 15 screening projects to fund each year; AstraZeneca has an option to license drug candidates that come out of the effort. The five-year pact builds on a long-standing relationship between AstraZeneca and MRC.