MRC Technology, a technology transfer charity and company, announced today it has entered into a strategic drug discovery collaboration with the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology (SIBCB), Chinese Academy of Science (CAS). The agreement will combine the SIBCB’s research expertise in generating potential new drug targets, with MRC Technology’s experience in further developing early stage research for pharmaceutical application and commercialisation. The focus of the collaboration is to fast track innovative drugable targets to create potent and selective novel therapeutics.
The collaboration was formalised at a signing ceremony held in Shanghai and attended by the senior team from both organisations including Dave Tapolczay and Michael Dalrymple (CEO and Director of Business Development, MRC Technology) and Professors Naihe Jing, Zhengjun Chen and Ge Jiang (Executive Director, Assistant Director and Head of Science and Technology respectively, SIBCB).
Dave Tapolczay, MRC Techology’s CEO commented, “SIBCB is one of the world’s leading academic research institutions and the initiative reflects our joint commitment to delivering drugs for the treatment of diseases of global significance. The collaboration gives us a strong partner in China and access to potential new targets to further develop into drug therapies.”
Supporting technology transfer and IP management efforts, MRC Technology set up its drug discovery laboratories in order to bridge the gap between innovative, early stage academic research and the development of intellectual property suitable for licensing to industry for further development and commercialisation. De-risking novel targets by providing proof of concept and pharma-quality data packages fulfils a clear need in the drug discovery process. The collaboration opens the MRC Technology laboratories up to a new source of targets from SIBCB researchers.
