Lilly, Merck & Pfizer form non-profit cancer research group
Eli Lilly, Merck & Co and Pfizer are combining resources to form the Asian Cancer Research Group (ACRG), a non-profit company which aims to accelerate research into lung and gastric cancers in Asia.
The three big pharmas plan to create an extensive pharmacogenomic cancer database, composed of data from 2,000 tissue samples from gastric and lung cancer patients, and make it publicly available to researchers.
Clinical data from a longitudinal analysis of patients will be added over time. Lilly will have ultimate responsibility for making the data public, using an open source concept managed at its Singapore site, and Merck and Pfizer will provide technical and intellectual expertise.
