The Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), a public-private partnership which carries out research relevant for drug discovery, secured $48.9m in funding last Wednesday from a range of investors.
Multinational pharmaceutical corporations Eli Lilly, through its Eli Lilly Canada division, and Pfizer became the newest members of the consortium making up the SGC, joining existing investors including the Novartis Research Foundation, a division of pharmaceutical corporation Novartis, healthcare conglomerate GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), federal agency the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, government ministry the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation and UK-based charity the Wellcome Trust.
Additionally, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Novartis and GSK have committed to providing more than $9m in in-kind contributions in the future for research on chemical tool compounds. SGC plans to continue its work on generating renewable antibodies to fight disease.
SCG’s first phase of funding raised CAD$95m (US$89.6m) in 2003, with GSK investing CAD$44.7m. The consortium makes all findings available to the medical research community without restriction.
Stephen K. Burley, distinguished research scholar at Lilly, said: "Epigenetics is one of the fastest growing areas in science today, and through the work being conducted under the SGC, with contributions from Lilly Canada, we will be able to combine our resources and expertise to rapidly search for and discover potential new medicines. Lilly looks forward to a strong and productive relationship with the SGC and its partners in many different areas of research for the benefit patients and their families."
Anthony Wood, senior vice president of worldwide medicinal chemistry at Pfizer, added: "Pfizer is pleased to join phase III of the SGC collaboration. We are impressed by the track record, scientific standards and broad collaborative network of the SGC and are looking forward to contributing our medicinal chemistry expertise to further accelerate research in the field of epigenetics."