Collaborative Chemistry

Yesterday I received the following email from NCATS (probably along with thousands of others).

Dear Colleagues:

This morning, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced $12.7 million in awards to match nine academic research groups with a selection of pharmaceutical industry compounds to explore new treatments for patients in eight disease areas, including Alzheimer’s disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and schizophrenia.

This collaborative pilot initiative, called Discovering New Therapeutic Uses for Existing Molecules, is led by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and funded by the NIH Common Fund. Scientific expertise will be provided by seven other NIH Institutes and Centers, including the National Cancer Institute; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; National Institute on Aging; National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; National Institute on Drug Abuse; National Institute of Mental Health; and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

We invite you to learn more in today’s news release: http://www.nih.gov/news/health/jun2013/ncats-18.htm, and via the links below:

• Read the NIH news release
• View the project awards
• Watch videos about the program and projects
• Listen to audio clips about the projects
• Visit the New Therapeutic Uses webpage

Sincerely,

NCATS Information Officer

I decided based on all the posts and our work on finding structures with Chris Southan and Antony Williams, that it would be a good idea to respond.

Here is what I sent along which is short and to the point – the posts on this blog have said it all IMHO.

Name:

Email Address:

Name of Organization:

City and State:

Please identify the nature of your interest in the area.:

[e.g., whether you are a biomedical or clinical researcher, a pharmaceutical company interested in participating in this initiative, a member of an advocacy or community group, or other (please indicate)?]

Comment 1:

Reasons why your institution would be interested in submitting a pre-application but not participate.

Comment 2:

The amount of public information that was posted for the available Agents in terms of the utility of the information for proposing studies for new therapeutic uses.

Comment 3:

Inclusion or absence of target classes represented by the 58 available Agents.

Comment 4:

NIH used a peer review process to determine the scientific merit of the X02 pre-applications.  Pharmaceutical partners were not involved in the review process. Comments can include the perceived advantages/disadvantages of this approach, how pharmaceutical partners might participate in the future and considerations that should be given if NIH allows the pharmaceutical partners to review the pre-applications.

Comment 5:

If you were an X02 applicant and put in contact with a pharmaceutical company by NCATS to discuss your application, feel free to comment on the feedback you received from the company.

Comment 6:

Any institutional challenges with getting CDAs and CRAs in place and the perceived value of the template agreements.

Comment 7:

Your level of interest in responding to an FOA for Discovering New Therapeutic Uses for Existing Molecules in the future.

Comment 8:

Your level of interest in being a pharmaceutical partner in the future.

Comment 9:

If you have additional comments or feedback that was not addressed previously, include it here.

Attachments:

paper describing some of the structures of the molecules that you did not post on the website – NCATS DDT structure paper.pdf