Novartis and University of Pennsylvania Announce Research Collaborative

The collaboration between academia and industry has led to some of the world’s greatest and most innovative breakthroughs in medicines and medical devices.  Frequently, life sciences companies rely on members of academia to conduct the basic research and clinical trials that may eventually lead to the research, development and approval of products that companies submit to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).   

In addition, there has been a recent trend for companies to invest in collaborative partnerships with academic medical centers to pursue research and development of innovative new drugs and treatments.  For example, last year, a new drug research collaboration was announced between pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and the University of California San Diego, which could deliver up to $50 million to local scientists over the next five years, speed the delivery of promising therapies to patients and help refill the fast-depleting pipeline of the world’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturer.  And earlier this year, Merck announced a collaboration to create the California Institute for Biomedical Research (Calibr), an independent, not-for-profit organization–501(c)(3).  

We have also written several times about the University of California, San Francisco Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, who advocates for establishing closer relationships with industry in order to spark new ideas, fund research, access high-tech equipment and speed medical advances to patients.  

Following in the footsteps of these collaborative partnerships, drugmaker Novartis and the University of Pennsylvania recently announced a research and licensing agreement that aims to bring to market a new approach to fighting cancer that has shown promising results in early trials, reported the New York Times.  The arrangement is being announced as major pharmaceutical companies are cutting back on their deals with biotech firms and collaborating increasingly with universities instead. Agreements between pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies totaled $18.9 billion in the first seven months of this year, a decline from the $22.7 billion in deals that were done over the same period a year ago, according to a recent report by the venture capital firm Burrill & Company. 

Penn is a leading center for viral vector research, and did the first clinical trial several years ago using adenoviral vectors to replace mutant genes in patients with inborn errors of metabolism. Under the leadership of Dr James Wilson this center has pioneered the use of viral vectors. 

The alliance seeks to build on the recent results of an experimental treatment that trains a person’s immune system to kill cancer cells.  Scientists at the university announced last year significant results in several patients with advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia who were treated using the new technique, including two who went into complete remission.  

The treatment uses a disabled form of the HIV-1 virus to carry cancer-fighting genes into the patients’ T-cells, a type of white blood cell that fights viruses and tumors. Although the study involved patients with leukemia, researchers hope to apply the approach to treat patients with a variety of cancers. Other trials are under way for lymphoma, mesothelioma, myeloma and neuroblastoma.  

Included in the deal is a commitment by Novartis to contribute $20 million to build the Center for Advanced Cellular Therapies, which will be devoted to studying the new treatments, on the campus.  Novartis and Penn say the deal will combine the intellectual resources of the university with the commercial wherewithal of the company, a major drugmaker. Penn is granting Novartis an exclusive worldwide license to the technologies, and Penn will receive royalty payments.  

“Penn’s intellectual resources, combined with a pharmaceutical industry leader like Novartis, offer a powerful symbiotic relationship in our mutual goal of finding more effective treatments for cancer,” J. Larry Jameson, dean of the Perelman School of the Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and executive vice president for the Health System, said in a statement announcing the deal.  

The downside, said G. Steven Burrill, chief executive of Burrill, is that Novartis and other companies will be taking on more risk by getting involved in research at its earliest phases. “Now they’re going to own all of the development, both the risk and the cost,” he said.  

In addition to the New York Times article, Pharmalot posted an interview about the new partnership with Mark Fishman, who is president of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. 

Fishman explained that the deal with Penn is different than most agreements with academic entities because it is a “multi-part contract.” Novartis has “an investigational potential drug, plus the ability and the willingness to do to the work around the actual manufacturing of this, which is not part of the usual, standard relationship with a university. Plus, what’s even more exciting is the ability to keep this in new directions of research around immunotherapy, in general.”  He also added that this agreement is another way Novartis is trying to grow and expand their translational research focus.   

The rest of the interview focused on the particular drugs Novartis will be developing in collaboration with Penn.  Fishman noted that the goal of this collaborative effort is to not only make the CARt systems as effective as possible, but for other cancers as well. Other cancers Novartis is working on B-cell malignancies such as CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia). Novartis also wants to start studying CARt-19 for other cancers that express CD-19, such as acute lymphocytic leukemia, or diffuse large B-cell lymphomas. Then, over time, Fishman said the company would want to identify antigens on other tumors that would be amenable to this type of targeting.  

Ultimately, Penn and Novartis should be applauded for this collaboration and other academic medical centers and companies should follow in their footsteps.  The more companies can begin to work together and collaborate on finding new ways to approach diseases such as cancer, the better chances patients have for receiving timely and effective treatment.