NIH awards $12.7M to repurpose pharma compounds

NIH's National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) awarded $12.7 million to nine academic research groups to repurpose compounds from pharma partners under a pilot initiative. The groups will evaluate the selected compounds, all of which have cleared safety and toxicity hurdles through at least Phase I testing, for effectiveness against eight diseases or conditions for which the compounds have previously been unexplored. Last year, a group of pharmas that includes AstraZeneca plc (LSE:AZN; NYSE:AZN), Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE:LLY), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) and Sanofi (Euronext:SAN; NYSE:SNY) partnered with NCATS to provide academic researchers access to 58 compounds for repurposing (see BioCentury Extra, June 12, 2012).

The LY500307, an estrogen receptor-b agonist for schizophrenia; AstraZeneca's saracatinib (AZD0530), a dual inhibitor of c- src and BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase for Alzheimer's disease; ZD4054, an endothelin A receptor antagonist for peripheral artery disease (PAD); and Pfizer's PF-03463275, a glycine transporter type 1 ( GlyT1; SLC6A9) inhibitor for schizophrenia. ...