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

BALTIMORE, Dec. 22, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- 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.

About the Academic Drug Discovery Consortium
ADDC is growing international consortium established in 2012, which currently comprises approximately 118 university-led drug discovery centers and over 1200 individual members from 35 countries.  The ADDC mission is to nurture academic drug discovery centers in the rapidly changing environment and build a collaborative network to facilitate the exchange of expertise and technology know-how, and the formation of partnerships between each other and pharmaceutical industry. For more information, visit www.addconsortium.org

About AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven biopharmaceutical business that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialisation of prescription medicines, primarily for the treatment of cardiovascular, metabolic, respiratory, inflammation, autoimmune, oncology, infection and neuroscience diseases. AstraZeneca operates in over 100 countries and its innovative medicines are used by millions of patients worldwide. For more information please visit: www.astrazeneca.com

Contact:
Aditya Polsani
Academic Drug Discovery Consortium
[email protected] 
Ph: 410-599-3071

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SOURCE Academic Drug Discovery Consortium

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