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The SGC: Where big pharma buys into the science of sharing
By Shawn Lawrence
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The STrucTural GenomicS conSorTium:
WHErE BIg PHArMA BUyS InTO THE SCIEnCE OF SHArIng
In the cut-throat world of drug discovery, pharmaceutical companies are often at odds over who gets the biggest slice of the proverbial pie. But there are some who believe that competition is not always best, that there are better ways to win the drug development race.
Rather than trying to get their own pieces of the action, Dr. Aled Edwards believes that if companies spent more time setting aside their differences and working together, there would be a larger pie to share. It’s with this belief in mind that he founded the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), a not-for-profit public-private partnership 12 years ago. The SGC supports the discovery of new medicines through unraveling the complexities of human biology by determining the 3D structures of human proteins of therapeutic relevance to diseases, and then using these structures to design small drug-like inhibitors of the proteins. What differentiates the SGC is that they share this knowledge, as well as the inhibitors publicly without patenting them. In fact, this knowledge and these research tools are already facilitating hundreds of drug discovery projects around the world.
This was always the idea behind the SGC according to Edwards.
“By sharing information about the protein and the chemistry, the SGC is equipping drug developers with a better understanding of the diseases they are trying to treat,” he says. According to Edwards the work takes place at SGC laboratories housed within universities all around the world. The SGC has a particular focus on proteins involved in the transfer of methyl, acetyl and phosphate groups.
“We provide new therapeutic hypotheses, and industry’s reaction is “I never knew we could make a drug by inhibiting that protein, thank you for that information SGC.” That’s our job, is to open up complete new areas of drug discovery by doing what we do.”
The results so far speak for themselves. Since its inception, the SGC through its collaborative network of 250 academic laboratories has determined the shapes of 15 per cent of all of the known proteins from the human genome. As it has promised to do, it has made this information available before publication and without restriction on use. It has also produced over 30 drug-like molecules to new disease targets, and the resulting knowledge has spurred more than a
(From left to right) Dr. ronan O’Hagan, Dr. Aled Edwards, The Honourable reza Moridi, Mr. Chirfi guindo and Ms. Jennifer Chan. (CnW group/Merck)
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dozen clinical trials in cancer.
“We’ve consistently met our objectives, and these objectives translate into papers in prestigious journals and through the knowledge we’ve generated, you begin to sort of understand how these molecules work,” Edwards explains.
He adds that there are approximately 40 companies spanning both pharma and biotech that are currently pursuing targets at the clinical trial stage that the SGC helped validate.
“When you have three-dimensional structure in complex with a drug-like molecule, it’s not challenging for a pharmaceutical or biotech company to make a novel molecule and get a patent position, from this information. This can take as little as a few months. However, no one would be working in that new area of science if we had we not put these molecules into the public domain.”
To date, the SGC`s efforts have attracted more than $150 million in industry funding.
“They’re saying here’s a pile of cash, don’t patent anything just share it with everyone. Go do great science in areas that nobody works in. They really want us to go do new stuff,” says Edwards.
At first glance the investment into the SGC by industry may seem like a traditional outsourcing exercise, but Edwards argues this couldn’t be farther from the truth.
“What companies want is simply great science that will lead to better disease hypotheses and in turn will lead to better medicines. And the speed with which we do our science is a lot faster and a lot cheaper than many companies could do because we can avoid many of the complexities of patents and competition. Of course what companies choose to do after with the information we make available is up to them - we’re in this to do great science.”
And this great science has attracted some of the biggest names in the pharmaceutical space including Abbvie, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, GSK, Janssen, Novartis, Pfizer, Eli Lilly Canada and Takeda. The latest to commit to the consortium, Merck, did so by making a $7.5 million contribution to support a multitude of projects including one that involves the development of small inhibitory molecules called chemical probes to study epigenetic mechanisms of regulation. According to Merck Canada Inc. president and managing director Chirfi Guindo, there are a multitude of reasons to get behind the SGC.
“We’ve done a robust assessment of our priorities in research, always beginning with where the need is greatest, and we’ve prioritized oncology, vaccines, acute care, diabetes and also newer degenerative diseases, and the science at the SGC is very promising in all these therapeutic areas,” says Guindo.
He also sees the merits of the SGC’s non-competitive business strategy and open access sharing.
“Frankly, our business model is constantly changing as we’ve come to realize that there is a great amount of useful knowledge in the public domain. Whether it’s tackling the most challenging of diseases, or improving our own research productivity, partnering with the SGC just makes sense.”
There was also the fact that SGC members enjoy the option to nominate targets and place scientists at SGC labs that Guindo found appealing.
“From our standpoint we see the SGC in Toronto as a center of excellence because it brings academia, government and industry together in a unique collaboration and working with these scientists only strengthens our own research efforts. Moreover, they’re part of globally competitive and highly credible research and science consortium in the biomedical field.”
Like Guindo, Edwards also sees the value of having scientists from both academia and industry working together.
“In this partnership with Merck and really with all of the companies we partner with, we get the chance to work with some of the top drug discovery scientists on planet earth and there’s a huge educational component to that.”
He adds that you never really know what`s going to happen next when you get scientists from across the research continuum together in the same room. Sometimes even, the doors swing wide open to future joint endeavors. Edwards adds that the other exciting aspect about the partnerships with Merck is that they have really bought into the concept of working in novel areas of science.
“They are explicitly supporting a project that takes the long road in terms of the areas it chooses to work, and that we’re very excited about. For example, Merck is highly supportive, like the rest of our industry partners, about forming these open source partnerships with hospitals. We’re talking a new partnership structure that includes not only companies, but also hospitals that have joined in on this no patenting idea. In this case the consortium partners will develop these really excellent molecules and the hospitals will collaborate with them to
test these molecules in cells from patients. As a part of this partnership with Merck for instance, we’re going to collaborate with the Montreal Neurological Institute, the Hospital for Sick Children, the University Health Network, CAMH, St. Michaels, and CHEO in Ottawa, and create this network of like-minded clinician scientists and institutions that believe that by doing this early stage research in the open, we will bring more ideas to drug discoverers, and more medicines to patients.”
Edwards believes that if successful, this partnership will also put more of a spotlight on Ontario, and even Canada for that matter, as an ideal place to do business and partner. This in turn might lead to further pre-competitive collaboration projects for the SGC and the Ontario biomedical ecosystem.
Asked if he ever believed the SGC would be this successful, Edwards responds assuredly yes.
“That’s not a statement about us per se, but it’s a statement that there was a clear need for this type of consortium. Whether it`s accelerating the time to drug discovery, working with industry to help make molecules that are effective, discovering new hypotheses and giving those away and letting the world play with them. The patients win, scientists win, industry wins,” says Edwards.
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To see this story online visit http://biotechnologyfocus.ca/ the-sgc-where-big-pharma-buysinto-the-science-of-sharing
