Joint immunotherapy research laboratory at the National Centre for Tumour Diseases (NCT) in Heidelberg / Operations at the joint laboratory scheduled to start in the middle of 2013 / Additional investments of up to €3 million per year
Bayer HealthCare (Bayer) and the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) will extend their successful strategic research alliance in search of novel cancer therapeutics by focusing their activities also on the field of immunotherapy. Immunotherapies are a promising approach to treat cancer with the aim to selectively reactivate the body's own immune system so that it attacks tumour cells.
For the first time, scientists from the German Cancer Research Centre and Bayer will work together in a joint laboratory located at the National Centre for Tumour Diseases (NCT) in Heidelberg to develop novel immunotherapies. The joint laboratory will accommodate up to twelve staff, and first projects are expected to start in the middle of this year. The partners will invest together up to €3 million per year under the expanded alliance.
“We are looking forward to interlinking our collaboration with the German Cancer Research Centre more closely to develop new treatment options in the field of immunotherapy for patients suffering from cancer”, said Professor Dr. Andreas Busch, Member of the Executive Committee of Bayer HealthCare and Head of Global Drug Discovery. “Bayer is committed to develop innovative therapies that can help people with serious diseases such as cancer to live longer and improve their quality of life.”
“The German Cancer Research Center's excellent expertise in basic research in oncology and Bayer's many years of experience in the development of new therapeutic options complement each other perfectly. Within the next five years, we aim to identify at least two new drug candidates in the field of cancer immunotherapy and to jointly develop them up to the start of clinical trials”, says Professor Dr. Otmar D. Wiestler, Chairman of the DKFZ's Management Board.
The partners will build on established structures of their existing collaboration including joint review processes of individual projects and resource allocations. The rights to the research findings are shared equally between the partners.
“The goal of one of our joint projects is to look for immunosuppressive molecules on the surface of tumour cells. In a next step we want to block them with antibodies and thereby activate the specific immune response against the tumour cells”, explains Professor Dr. Philipp Beckhove, Head of Translational Immunology at the DKFZ. “The new joint laboratory allows us to closely and continuously collaborate with the colleagues from Bayer and, thus, will support the faster translation of concepts from the lab into clinical trials.”
The partners can already look back on more than four successful years of collaborative work. Twenty-two projects have been initiated so far, and some of these have already reached important milestones and moved on to the next phase of drug development namely compound screening for new potential drug candidates. Up to now, the two partners have invested more than €10 million in their ongoing joint research since end of 2008.
