Cancer matchmaker

As pharmas increasingly look to offload early stage R&D expenses, Cancer Research Technology Ltd., the commercial arm of biomedical charity Cancer Research UK, has seen more uptake of its partnered consortium model for commercializing the discoveries of its stable of academic researchers. This year, Cancer Research Technology has expanded its anchor collaboration with AstraZeneca plc by brokering two more deals between the pharma and academic teams.

CRT brings together researchers across the U.K. with similar interests and organizes them into teams to work on specific discovery projects, said CSO Clive Stanway. CRT's academic consortia focus on mechanisms in cancer that are potentially targetable but require additional tool building and proof-of-concept work before entering pharma pipelines...