ADDC and AstraZeneca Collaborate to Support Five High Throughput Screening Proposals for New Therapeutic Targets

ADDC researchers from US, Europe and Australia will receive access to AstraZeneca's compound library to aid in the discovery of new medicines.

ADDC provided the opportunity to its members to access AstraZeneca's high quality compound library through a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) process. Each of the five selected institutions will have access to up to 250,000 compounds from AstraZeneca's internal screening library. Selected institutions will be working closely with AstraZeneca scientists in oncology, diabetes and psychiatric disease areas.

"The ADDC is enthusiastic to aide in the development of five projects being pursued by its consortium members. Bringing together academic discoveries of new therapeutic targets and the high quality drug library from the pharmaceutical industry to probe for new drugs that interact with the target is a win-win for both parties," said Barbara Slusher, Professor at Johns Hopkins and the Founder and President of the ADDC. "This new collaboration utilizes the best skills and resources from each of the two partners."

"The quality of the science within the Project Proposals was outstanding," said Garry Pairaudeau, Head of External Sciences at AstraZeneca. He continued: "AstraZeneca is delighted to be collaborating with ADDC and its member institutions to identify innovative drug targets that may have efficacy in diseases with unmet clinical need. Establishing partnerships with leading scientific institutions is core to our strategy to bring innovative medicines to patients."

AstraZeneca and the selected institutions will be negotiating an option agreement prior to pursuing screening and drug development work.