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Pfizer Teams With Harvard in $100 Million Drug Research Deal
By Robert Langreth and John Lauerman - Jun 8, 2011 4:18 PM ET

Pfizer Inc. (PFE), the world’s largest drug company, will join with Harvard University-affiliated hospitals in a $100 million project that will bring together university and industry researchers to speed drug discovery.

As part of the deal, Pfizer will lease laboratory space in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, allowing its scientists to work with researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and other Boston-area academic institutions, the New York-based company said.

The move expands Pfizer’s effort to work with academic experts to invent new drugs, something it calls the Centers for Therapeutic Innovation. Last November, Pfizer formed the first such partnership with the University of California, San Francisco, and, in January, it started working with seven New York-area hospitals. The partnerships create “jointly staffed” laboratories that are on or near campuses, so academic researchers can have access to Pfizer compound libraries, according to the company’s website.

“Our ultimate goal is to bridge the gap between scientific discovery and the delivery of promising candidates to the pipeline,” Jose Carlos Gutierrez-Ramos, a Pfizer senior vice president, said in a statement.
The partnership announced today includes Harvard University; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Children’s Hospital Boston; and Partners HealthCare, whose founding members are Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham & Women’s. It also includes Tufts Medical School, Tufts University, Boston University and the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.

Rapid Access
Many basic research findings that may lead to new treatments don’t get followed up for years, Pfizer’s Gutierrez- Ramos said in an interview. The collaboration will give scientists at Harvard and the other institutions a rapid way to confirm whether their new ideas have merit for treating diseases such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.
“This is not about basic research, this is not about late- stage clinical trials,” he said. “This is about translating science into early proof of mechanism in humans.”
The center will support the development of promising ideas that may not get government funding in today’s tight budgetary times, William Chin, executive dean for research at Harvard Medical School, said in an interview.

New Ideas
The initiative might help develop ideas in the same way that the lymphoma treatment, Rituxan, from Switzerland-based Roche Holding AG (ROG) and Biogen Idec Inc. (BIIB) in Weston, Massachusetts, grew from research at Harvard and other institutions, he said. The precise amount of money that may flow from the agreement, which will focus on biotechnology drugs, is yet to be seen, he said.
“It’s a matter of how many good ideas there are,” he said.
Pfizer said it will invest $100 million over five years in the Boston collaboration, including support for 40 scientists from Pfizer and its academic partners, potential milestone payments to the collaborators for projects that pan out, and the cost of the lease.
To contact the reporters on this story: Robert Langreth in New York at [e-mail]; John Lauerman in Boston at [e-mail]