BioCentury
ARTICLE | Strategy

Uprooting CEEDD

June 13, 2013 7:00 AM UTC

Although GlaxoSmithKline plc has quietly shuttered its Center of Excellence for External Drug Discovery (CEEDD), the pharma maintains it is not deprioritizing early program partnerships. Instead, GSK thinks its R&D scientists have adopted the strategies brought in by CEEDD, and that there is no longer a need for a group dedicated to creating external alliances.

GSK established the CEEDD in 2005 as part of an initiative to build its pipeline by tapping into external talent. The program, which involved approximately 20 GSK scientists, ran through 2012 and brought 16 alliances to the organization. By 2011, however, external alliances were being generated increasingly by non-CEEDD scientists, and CEEDD was no longer the primary driver of external early stage opportunities (see"Selected deals between GSK and biotechs or academic institutions")...