MILNER THERAPEUTICS CONSORTIUM
pharmaceutical companies
academic centres in Cambridge
million pounds invested by industry partners
consortium projects
The Milner Therapeutics Consortium has been active since June 2015 and is based on a research agreement signed by three academic centres in Cambridge and ten pharmaceutical companies: the University of Cambridge, the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Babraham Institute; and Astellas, Astex, AstraZeneca, Eisai, Eli Lilly and Company, Daiichi Sankyo, Johnson & Johnson, MSD, Pfizer and Shionogi. The agreement is designed to facilitate the speedy exchange of reagents and information for research collaboration with academics across Cambridge. Each industry partner within the Milner Therapeutics Consortium has set aside funds for collaborative projects, which are open to any therapeutic area and are expected to lead to joint publications.
The Innovation Board brings together the industrial and academic partners of the Consortium to determine the overarching challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry and predict future needs. It enables companies to collaborate on common research projects related to targets, technologies and therapeutic areas.
There have been 44 Consortium projects across 17 Departments and Institutes of the University and the Babraham to date; these include a focus on oncology, infectious diseases, CNS and chemistry (an investment of £15 million by our industry partners). The projects are early-stage research collaborations aiming to discover and validate new therapeutic targets, apply novel technologies and better understand disease mechanisms in advanced cellular models. They are broad in remit and can include access to compounds (including those already tested in the clinic), datasets, equipment or know-how in a particular technique. In some cases, an industry scientist has come to work in the academic’s lab, and in others an academic post has been funded specifically for the project. The emphasis in all our collaborations is on mutual sharing of expertise. The Consortium agreement supports both individual projects between an academic group and a company, and pre-competitive projects with multiple pharmaceutical companies (see case studies).
How to work with us:
If you are a pharma company who is interested in the Consortium model or an academic with a potential pre-clinical collaborative project that would benefit from industry expertise and know-how, please contact us at any time for a meeting. Find out more about current areas of interest for our pharma partners by clicking the logos below.
Joining the Milner Therapeutics Consortium was a natural step for MSD, aligning with our commitment to collaborative science that will enable and accelerate drug discovery. We see the partnership as a gateway to deeper engagement with the Cambridge research community, bringing together our expertise with the Milner Institute’s innovative ecosystem, to spark new ideas and impactful research.
