National Institutes of Health's new Translational Research Center (NIH) has its first head: Christopher Austin, a neurologist and former Merck researcher led drug discovery efforts at NIH for the last 10 years. The NIH Director Francis Collins announced the appointment this morning at the inaugural meeting of the Advisory Board of the 9-month-old National Centre for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS).
Congress signed the $ 575 million NCATS last December after months of controversy about whether the NIH tried to become a pharmaceutical company. NIH insists that NCATS will be limited to treating the bottlenecks in the drug development process.
Collins said that after "vigorous international research," NIH chose Austin, 51, who now heads the division NCATS 'preclinical innovation. "Chris has had a remarkable career with a great diversity experiences that put it in a wonderful position to lead this company, "said Collins.
A development neurogeneticist Harvard-trained Austin worked on the discovery of genome-based drugs from Merck for 7 years. In 02 he left to become advisor for translational research at the National Institute for Research on the human genome, where Collins was director. Austin helped launch the Molecular Libraries Program of the NIH, a set of testing centers of small molecules style industry in academic institutions. Until recently, he directed the intramural NIH screening center and other programs, such as the development of drugs for rare diseases. When NCATS was created, they were bent in its preclinical division.
Austin, which begins September 23 (his birthday), described the NCATS appointment today's meeting as the "culmination" of his long career efforts to bridge basic research and clinical. "This is a very difficult mission, ambitious but deeply important that we are all about," he said.
Some observers suggest that the NIH has struggled to recruit a director of NCATS outside because a scientist from the industry who moved to NIH would probably take a steep pay cut and dispose of any company stock medicines he or she belongs. Other deterrents could have been dark NIH budget outlook and the next presidential election, which could cause a change in direction of the NIH.
Steven Paul, a former head of Eli Lilly now looking at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, who served on the search committee, declined to say if the government rules hindered research. What matters, Paul says, is that "We came with a wonderful person ... Chris is credible with both university researchers and the private sector.".
At the meeting today, leaders of the NIH and its advisers-a mixture of patients, industry experts and university-started this sort NCATS will do. (The meeting also included the board overlapping the Cures network acceleration, CAN, NCATS a component that will give grants for drug development.) US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said NCATS she hopes will not only come up with specific tools to improve regulatory science, such as new trial designs but also get both basic science and clinical thinking about the steps needed to transform a potential drug a product. "We need to think about how we do research a little differently," she said.
Thomas Insel, director of NCATS acting, warned that the center, which consists mostly of existing programs at NIH, will not be much new money to work with. "We really need to be very focused," he said.
But CAN board member Tachi Yamada, Medical and Scientific Director at Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. said NCATS does not necessarily need a big budget to make an impact. "Many solutions can be very cheap if thought strategically," he said. Yamada, who also worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, gave the example of an ongoing collaboration, he was involved in to work with the FDA to obtain approval of a cocktail of three drugs for tuberculosis, without passing through "50 years of clinical trials." NCATS, he said, will benefit from "a very serious strategic analysis when true roadblocks may be in selective areas. "
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