Working with leading principal investigators, Pfizer said it will provide funding to support the preclinical and clinical development of sponsored programs, with the goal of achieving proof-of-mechanism.
The new centre will be located at the Alexandria Centre for Life Science in New York, where 20 Pfizer researchers will remain on-site to work closely with researchers from the hospitals.
In addition, the drug giant will provide university researchers with access to its compound libraries and associated technologies.
Anthony Coyle, head of Pfizer’s Global Centres for Therapeutic Innovation, told Outsourcing-Pharma: “The significance of New York’s most respected research hospitals joining with us to develop medicine should not be understated.”
He believes: “It will more closely connect academia and the pharmaceutical industry with an aim toward greater productivity, shared risk and a deep connection to science.”
Coyle said the seven research hospitals will contribute people, time, ideas and expertise to the project aimed at delving into the deep science of disease and applying novel targets to meet patients’ needs.
Tough times for R&D companies
He explained that pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) companies are facing challenges due to higher costs, long cycle times, high late-stage attrition and technological and genomic breakthroughs that have increased R&D complexity.
He said: “CTI will help to address these challenges by bringing the best minds together to enrich the discovery process, increasing the quality of early research studies and clinical trials, providing access to patients to pursue profile-specific targets and mechanisms, and reducing costs.”
Pfizer confirmed that Rockefeller University, New York University’s Langone Medical Centre, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, The Mount Sinai Medical Centre, Columbia University Medical Centre, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Weill Cornell Medical College, will partner at its New York CTI.
Initial set-up in San Francisco
The investment in New York comes after Pfizer set up its first centre in November last year at the University of California, San Francisco, US.
The Alexandria Centre is the first and only life science park in New York City, providing research space for research organisations and life science bodies. Coyle said the investment will help New York on its way to becoming a “biomedical research hub.”