Cancer Research UK, Celgene Ink Cancer R&D Pact
Cancer Research Technology (CRT), a subsidiary of Cancer Research UK, has now entered a 5-year collaboration with American biopharmaceutical firm Celgene for the discovery, development and commercialization of new anti-cancer treatments.
The collaboration will see Celgene pay a fee upfront to CRT and, in return, Celgene has the option to acquire the US or global rights to any compounds that develop out of their work together. Should Celgene choose to take the option, it would have to pay additional fees, as well as any royalties and agreed milestone payments from licensed programs.
This collaboration is an expansion of Cancer Research Technology’s theme-based translational model that now encompasses six industry partnerships. This one is focused on mRNA translation, the cellular process of assembling proteins. This research as seen as having potential to produce treatments targeting a fundamental characteristic of cancer cells.
Iain Foulkes, CRT’s chief executive, called the deal a “bold and exciting collaboration with one of industry’s leading innovators.”
“This bold and exciting collaboration between one of industry’s leading innovators, Celgene, and CRT is part of our theme-based drug discovery approach and helps leverage our understanding of cancer biology and the needs of patients to drive the most promising discoveries into the clinic,
” he said.“This is our largest drug discovery collaboration to date and represents a major endorsement of the reputation and scale of our capacity and expertise in both drug discovery and clinical development by a leading industry partner.”
The initiative is concentrated on mRNA translation, the process through which messenger macromolecules are decoded to drive the formation of proteins. Several oncogenes and tumor suppressors, such as RAS and TP53, influence translation machinery, and dysregulation of protein synthesis is a typical trait of cancer cells. Targeting the process could, as a result, interrupt the cancer from spreading.
Remarkably, the aberrant translation seen in cancer cells is divorced from the genetic composition of the tumor. This advances the idea that targeting mRNA translation will be effective despite the genetics of the tumor, therefore bypassing issues created by intratumor heterogeneity. CRT has not detailed how it intends to target the translation machinery. But, its parent company, Cancer Research UK, has funded studies into the eIF4F complex, a broadly researched target in the field.
