AstraZeneca and the Medical Research Council (MRC) have formed collaboration to create a joint research facility at AstraZeneca's new R&D center in Cambridge in the UK.

The AstraZeneca MRC UK Center for Lead Discovery will sit within the new AstraZeneca site at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, due to be completed in 2016. It will see world class MRC-supported researchers working with scientists in AstraZeneca's high throughput screening group, identifying new methods to better understand a range of diseases and potential treatment options.

As part of the collaboration, which will run for an initial period of five years, academic researchers will have access to more than two million molecules in AstraZeneca's compound library, as well as its high throughput screening facilities at the new site. Research proposals will be submitted to the MRC that will independently assess and select the best scientific proposals from a broad range of therapy areas and diseases. The MRC will fund up to 15 screening projects per year to be carried out at the Center for Lead Discovery. AstraZeneca will have the first option to enter a negotiation to license any resulting drug discovery programs of relevance to the company's therapeutic areas of interest. If this option is not used, the academics can negotiate with other parties.

Some initial projects may commence as early as 2015, based at AstraZeneca's existing research facilities.

Source: AstraZeneca