We are excited to announce that two new pharma partners — Takeda and Sanofi — have joined the Milner Consortium in the past month. Now with 14 pharma partners and 3 academic partners, this is the largest cross-sector Biomedical Consortia in the UK that is working in target discovery across multiple disease areas and emerging technologies. Since 2015, the Consortium has initiated 37 research projects across the University of Cambridge, Babraham and Wellcome Sanger Institutes, bringing a research investment of >£9m.
Sanofi has its UK R&D base on the Babraham Research Campus, south of Cambridge, which is focused on the discovery of novel therapeutics for the treatment of chronic inflammatory & autoimmune diseases, and also brings expertise around antibody discovery and antibody engineering. Chris Schiering (Director of Translational Biology, Immune Regulation & Tolerance Cluster, I&I Research) and Mark Peakman (Head of Immune Regulation & Tolerance Cluster, I&I Research) will represent Sanofi on the Milner Innovation Board.
Sanofi UK R&D are excited to join the Milner Therapeutics Consortium. Through our affiliation with the Milner, we hope to establish mutually beneficial long-term collaborations with world leading Cambridge academics. Our close proximity to Cambridge University combined with our expertise in inflammation research and engineering of therapeutic modalities make us an ideal partner for research collaborations with a translational focus.
Takeda aims to discover and deliver life-transforming treatments in core therapeutic and business areas, including gastrointestinal and inflammation, rare diseases, plasma-derived therapies, oncology, neuroscience and vaccines. Takeda’s global Research & Development (R&D) center is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts with R&D Research Labs in San Diego, California, and Shonan, Japan and Regional R&D Centers and local sites across the globe. Peter Maycox (Director of External Innovation, Neuroscience Research) will represent Takeda on the Milner Innovation Board with an additional representative joining in the coming months.
We are delighted to join the Milner Therapeutics Consortium and look forward to establishing productive collaborations with world class groups at Cambridge University to better understand disease mechanisms and translation towards the clinic.
We are really excited to have Sanofi and Takeda join the Milner Consortium. The Consortium offers significant potential to develop academic–industry relationships and for cross industry discussion. We look forward to working with the new partners going forward.