A second chance. A new program will allow researchers to test compounds abandoned for new uses.
US National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health announced (NIH) today announced details of its $ 20 million program to find new uses for drugs abandoned-and five more participating companies. The expansion of the program brings to 58 the number of compounds shelved that academic researchers can test new applications.
Use the discovery of New therapeutic for Existing Molecules, announced in early May, is the first major initiative of the new NIH National Center for the Advancement of Science Translational (NCATS). The idea is to give university researchers access to compounds that have made through safety tests, but were abandoned by companies for commercial reasons or because they were not working on a specific disease. Initially, three companies-Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly offered to share 24 compounds.
Now, Abbott Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi and Janssen Pharmaceuticals signed, bringing the number of compounds to 58. NIH has published a table of compounds that links to a page on cards drugs that include the mechanism of action and clinical results summary. NIH also supports preapplications (due August 14) to grant 2 to 3 years of the program.
The program received a mixed response from experts from the pharmaceutical industry; some think that the chances of finding new uses for the compounds are slim. Others are favorable but have concerns about the NIH model legal agreements developed for companies and academics. In this letter 1 June to NCATS, the Association of American Medical Colleges said that models should be revised because they "require university partners to share data and other information with companies supplying the same compounds when IP [intellectual property] rights do not necessarily go to that information. "
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