We are delighted that the Milner Therapeutics Consortium has been renewed until 2029, which will continue to provide opportunities for our academic and business communities to engage with pharma at an early stage.
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 nine pharmaceutical companies: the University of Cambridge, the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Babraham Institute and Astellas, Astex, AstraZeneca, Eisai, Eli Lilly and Company, Johnson & Johnson, MSD, Pfizer and Shionogi.
There have been >40 Consortium projects across 17 Departments and Institutes of the University, the Babraham and the Sanger to date, involving an investment of >£15 million by the industry partners.
The Consortium agreement is designed to facilitate the speedy exchange of reagents and research collaboration across broad therapeutic areas with academics in Cambridge. The emphasis in all our collaborations is on mutual sharing of expertise, and enabling research that neither party could do alone. Collaborations often include funding for an academic post and can include access to compounds (including those already tested in the clinic), datasets, equipment or know-how in a particular technique. The projects are expected to lead to joint publications with the company partners.
Our pharma partners work through an Innovation Board to address therapeutic challenges across the broad spectrum of human disease. Many have research and development interests that overlap, enabling them to propose common research themes related to targets, technologies and therapeutic areas that could be ideal for pre-competitive projects. These themes are explored through challenge-led workshops and are also an essential part of our annual Consortium Call, launched in 2021, whereby academics can suggest potential projects that would provide mutual benefit to both the academic and pharma. Outside of the Consortium Call, the Milner works continually with each company to identify academics working in research areas that are of specific interest to them. We also provide these companies with opportunities to meet with a network of >80 affiliated companies, as well as early sight of start-ups from across Cambridge and beyond, through our activities with the Frame Shift bio-incubator and the Founders Growth Community.
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.
We are thrilled to announce the Consortium renewal and to continue working with this unique grouping of pharma partners to advance research towards new therapeutics. This will deepen and build on the relationships of long-term pharma partners with academics and founders across the Cambridge community, and will create exciting collaborative opportunities with new partners.