Cancer Research UK agrees 3-year commercialisation deal with AstraZeneca

Collaboration

CRT Ltd, the technology transfer and commercialisation arm of the UK research charity, Cancer Research UK, has teamed up with AstraZeneca plc in a three-year, multi-project alliance, to discover and develop new drugs that target cancer cell metabolism. The alliance will work on a portfolio of projects selected by CRT from the charity’s basic research into cancer metabolism.

Tumour cells use energy differently from normal cells, particularly under the conditions of nutrient and hypoxic stress that occur in rapidly-growing tumours.

An alliance team of 30 researchers will work at CRT’s Discovery Laboratories in London and Cambridge, and AstraZeneca’s cancer research centre near Manchester. They will develop small molecules which target tumour metabolism in an attempt to deprive cancer cells of the nutrients they need to grow.

AstraZeneca will take the most promising projects forward into pre-clinical and clinical drug development, with CRT receiving milestone payments and royalties on any products that AstraZeneca takes into clinical development.

Keith Blundy, chief executive of CRT, said the deal is a vindication of CRT’s decision to invest in setting up its own labs to advance basic research funded by Cancer Research UK to the point where it is of commercial interest. “It’s a major milestone in the development of CRT’s Discovery Laboratories, which have been created to advance early stage cancer discoveries to a point where they are attractive to commercial collaborators.”

Les Hughes, Global Vice President of Cancer Research at AstraZeneca, said the deal will enable the company to “speed up research” in this area by pairing AstraZeneca’s drug discovery and development capabilities with CRT’s expertise in indentifying and progressing new targets selected from Cancer Research UK’s basic research portfolio.