Biogen joins pioneering Target Validation Collaboration

The Centre for Therapeutic Target Validation welcomes new member Biogen, expanding its efforts to accelerate drug discovery research.

The CTTV uses advances in genetic research and computational biology to help scientists with the crucial first step in exploring new medicines: finding where to start. Target validation, an exercise that clearly defines the role that a biological process plays in a disease, is a key initial phase of drug discovery. Currently, an estimated 90% of compounds entering clinical trials fail to demonstrate the necessary efficacy and safety requirements, never reaching patients as medicines. This is often because the biological target chosen is not well understood.

“We are committed to advancing evidence-based target discovery and opening up the field for researchers to create innovative methods and tools to accelerate the development of new medicines,” says Sally John, vice president, Computational Biology & Genomics at Biogen. “Being part of the CTTV helps us realize this vision and provides a practical, harmonized way to share data with the scientific community.”

Biogen’s new membership follows the launch of the new CTTV Target Validation Platform (www.targetvalidation.org), which helps researchers identify therapeutic targets for new medicines. Underscoring its utility for drug discovery, the platform has had over 9000 visits since its launch in December 2015.

Philip Ma, vice president, Digital Health Technology & Data Sciences at Biogen, adds: “The importance of accessing and managing searchable, structured data is critical to sharing knowledge on target validation. We look forward to combining our expertise in data sciences with the leading capabilities of GSK, the Sanger Institute and EMBL-EBI."

“The CTTV is proud to announce the addition of Biogen to our collaboration to improve the process of identifying and validating targets,” elaborates Jeffrey Barrett, CTTV Director. “The pre-competitive nature of CTTV is critical: the collaboration of our members allows us to make the most of commercial R&D practice while making the data and information available to everyone. It is truly exciting to apply so many different areas of expertise, from cell biology to large scale genome analysis, to the challenge of creating better medicines.”

The CTTV covers all aspects of human health and disease. The cornerstone of the collaboration is an agreement that experimental data and information gathered within the CTTV will be shared to benefit the broader scientific community, after basic quality control checks to ensure consistency with the data-sharing guidelines of both institutes. The CTTV welcomes new interest from companies and academic institutions that wish to accelerate the discovery of drug targets through open innovation.