The University of California, San Francisco has signed a partnership agreement with Genentech, Inc. to discover and develop drug candidates for neurodegenerative diseases. Genentech will support the work of several researchers at the UCSF Small Molecule Discovery Center (SMDC), which is administered by the UCSF School of Pharmacy and located in the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) on the UCSF Mission Bay campus. A research team at Genentech will work closely with UCSF to develop a drug candidate based on prior academic research conducted at SMDC and discoveries at Genentech. In addition to receiving financial support from Genentech for its research function, UCSF has the potential for further funding in excess of $13 million, if certain development and commercial milestones are met, plus royalties.<\/p>\n
The agreement represents the first major collaboration SMDC has formed with an industry partner, according to Jim Wells, PhD, who founded the center in 2005 and serves as its director. “What is transformative about this agreement from the university’s perspective is that it is a true collaboration between UCSF and Genentech scientists with the intent to generate drug candidates. This is different from a standard outlicense or simple research collaboration,” says Wells.<\/p>\n
The collaboration builds upon an existing master agreement between Genentech and UCSF that allows the two to collaborate in a streamlined manner. “To date we have entered into more than 15 research collaborations with UCSF across several therapeutic areas,” says Marc Tessier-Lavigne, PhD, executive vice president for research and chief scientific officer of Genentech. “We believe that this latest agreement with SMDC enhances our relationship with the university and creates a new model for important industry-academic drug development partnerships.” The partnership also coincides with the UCSF School of Pharmacy’s goal of shaping the future of pharmacy science by working in fresh, collaborative ways, according to Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD, dean of the UCSF School of Pharmacy. “This is a tremendous new partnership and one that fits perfectly with one of the school’s major strategic goals,” she says. “Our work with QB3 is a great example of how we are doing this. We believe the new UCSF partnership with Genentech takes this to a whole new level.”<\/p>\n