Gilead Joins Up With Yale In Cancer Discovery Collaboration

The biotech has partnered with Yale University on cancer research in a deal that could provide $100 million in funding to Yale over 10 years.

Gilead Sciences Inc. is the latest drug maker to sign a hefty research collaboration with an academic partner. The biotech announced a partnership with Yale School of Medicine at Yale University to discover novel cancer therapies March 30, a deal that will provide Yale with $40 million over an initial four-year period with an option for funding of up to $100 million over 10 years. This is the first partnership of its kind for Gilead.

The collaboration is aimed at understanding of the underlying causes of cancer and the development of targeted therapies, the two said. Three researchers at Yale will be primarily involved in the program: Joseph Schlessinger, director of the West Campus Cancer Biology Institute; Thomas Lynch, director of the Yale Cancer Center; and Richard Lifton, director of the West Campus Center for Genome Analysis.

Research projects will be chosen by a joint steering committee to be chaired by Schlessinger, and Gilead will have an option to license any inventions that result from the research.

"When we find cancer targets that are new, we will work with Gilead on designing drugs, which they can then test in the clinic," Schlessinger said in a statement.

The Yale Center for Genome Analysis at West Campus will analyze DNA from a variety of tumors to look for genetic mutations that could cause cancer. Gilead said it was drawn to Yale because of the strides the team has made in researching genetic links to cancer.

The collaboration is intended to broaden Gilead's cancer discovery capabilities and to help develop the company's oncology pipeline in light of recent acquisitions, the firm added.

Those acquisitions include Gilead's June 2010 buyout of CGI Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Branford, Conn.-based drug discovery company that was spun out of Yale in 2000, for $120 million in upfront cash and milestones. The team at the CGI subsidiary will be working closely with researchers at Yale, Gilead said.

In February, Gilead paid $375 million in upfront cash and $225 million in potential milestones to take out privately-held Calistoga Pharmaceuticals Inc., a closely watched developer of PI3 kinase inhibitors. It's an arena big pharmas are eager to play in because the signaling pathway involved is implicated not only in oncology, but also in inflammatory disease, cardiovascular disorders and neurodegenerative conditions. The acquisition, which gave Gilead a Phase II asset and a basket of interesting, highly specific but early-stage PI3 kinase blockers, further deepened its commitment to oncology (Also see "Gilead Springs Further Into Oncology With Calistoga Acquisition" - Pink Sheet, 22 Feb, 2011.).

Gilead is the latest in a string of big pharmas strengthening ties to academia in an effort to build early discovery capabilities. Pfizer Inc. announced an ambitious academic initiative at the beginning of the year, committing $100 million and aligning itself with seven New York City-based medical centers to discover novel biotherapeutics (Also see "Pfizer Signs Up Seven New York Institutions To Create Biomedical Discovery Engine" - Pink Sheet, 25 Jan, 2011.).

The announcement was the second step in a plan to roll out a series of Centers for Therapeutic Innovation, across eight cities. The first was a five-year, $85 million alliance with the University of California, San Francisco - which will be expanded out across other San Francisco-based institutions. Johnson & Johnson, Bayer AG, and Sanofi-Aventis have already also inked academic collaborations in 2011.

-Lisa LaMotta ([email protected])