UK’s Medical Research Council pools genetic resources with GlaxoSmithKline

The UK’s Medical Research Council is joining forces with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in a three year GBP 2 million programme to identify and validate genes associated with common human diseases and translate these findings into new drug targets and biomarkers.

The partners say the programme will pilot a new way of collaborative working between the two organisations, bringing together academic and industrial expertise and resources, including sharing databases and sample collections.

As part of the collaboration, GSK will make available data acquired from large disease-related and population-based genetic studies, which have potential to link genetic traits to detailed variations in phenotypes.

The programme will be managed by a joint MRC-GSK Steering Group, which will oversee the funding and progress of projects.

To mark the creation of this partnership two awards were announced. The first will study the genetic basis of depression, while the second is focused on using large cohorts of patient and population data to identify new genetic variants associated with obesity and related metabolic disorders.

Patrick Vallance, Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery, GlaxoSmithKline, said “The genetics of human diseases has come of age and GSK wants to make the most of current knowledge and research to significantly impact treatment options.”

“We have worked hard to collect and refine our data but we now need to take a bold step forwards and work with others to uncover the new disease targets and genetic variations that are useful to inform drug discovery and development.”

Vallance added, “We hope other industry groups will see the power of pooling knowledge in this way and consider how they too can work productively with academic partners.

Leszek Borysiewicz, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, said the project, “is a testament to the collaborative working relationship which exists between public and private research in the UK.”