Cambridge, Karolinska: contributing to Innovative Medicines schizophrenia project

An international consortium of universities and pharmaceutical companies, led by the Danish pharma company H. Lundbeck and King’s College London, and involving Karolinska Institutet and Cambridge University, has launched a collaboration to devise new methods for developing drugs for schizophrenia and depression.

The project, ‘Novel Methods leading to New Medications in Depression and Schizophrenia’ (NEWMEDS) is part of the European Union’s Innovative Medicines Initiative. Corporate partners include AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Novartis, Orion, Pfizer, Roche, Servier, Wyeth, deCODE and Psynova, while the other academic partners are the Central Institute of Mental Health, Germany; CSIC, Spain; Manchester University, UK; and the Bar Ilan University in Israel. The German company GABO:mi will be managing the project.

There is a wealth of new knowledge and research findings about schizophrenia and depression, but it has proved hard to take these findings from the bench to the clinic. The researchers believe there to be three major bottlenecks that are holding the field back:

• a lack of accurate animal models to guide drug discovery;

• a lack of tools and tests in healthy volunteers that can provide early indication of efficacy; and

• the difficulty of classifying patients, which leads to biologically heterogeneous cohorts in clinical trials.

The main objective of NEWMEDS is to develop new models and methods of drug discovery and development, paving the ways for novel treatments for schizophrenia and depression. The project will focus on developing new animal models which use brain recording and behavioural tests to identify innovative and effective drugs for schizophrenia.

The project will develop the hardware and analysis techniques to apply brain imaging, especially MRI and PET, to drug development. It will examine how new findings about the genetics of schizophrenia influence the response to various drugs, and whether this information can be used to choose the right drug for the right patient. And finally, it will try and develop new approaches to stratify patient populations for clinical trials.

Shitij Kapur, Dean of the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s, said, “'NEWMEDS is a very timely experiment. While the biology of psychiatry has made remarkable progress, we have been slow in converting that into innovative and new medications. This is a joint challenge for academia and industry.”

Kapur added, “NEWMEDS is a joint response. It is not only scientifically innovative, but it is also an innovation, in creating a cluster of nearly 50 scientists from both sides to work together to achieve a common goal – better, safer and more effective medications – more quickly.”

Tine Bryan Stensbøl, Divisional Director for Discovery Pharmacology Research at H. Lundbeck, Coordinator of the NEWMEDS consortium, said, “Academia and industry have a long tradition of working together on a one-on-one basis. NEWMEDS embodies a novel collaborative effort where companies join forces and together with academia answer scientific questions in a precompetitive environment that will form the basis of tomorrow's medicines.”

The project is funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), the public-private partnership between the pharmaceutical industry, represented by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, EFPIA and the European Union. IMI has a budget of €1 billion from the Seventh Framework Programme. That amount will be matched by in kind contributions of at least another €1 billion from the EFPIA member companies.