Biogen joins Centre for Therapeutic Target Validation

Biogen has joined a new target validation partnership that aims to accelerate the discovery of new medicines.

The company has joined the Centre for Therapeutic Target Validation (CTTV), a pioneering public-private collaboration founded by GlaxoSmithKline, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the European Bioinformatics Institute.

It aims to develop open and transformative approaches for selecting and validating novel targets in drug development, leveraging the latest advances in genetic research and computational biology to validate targets.

Currently, an estimated 90 percent of compounds entering clinical trials fail to demonstrate the necessary efficacy and safety requirements, often because the biological target chosen is not well understood.

The CTTV Target Validation Platform helps researchers identify therapeutic targets and has received more than 9,000 visits since launching in December 2015.

Sally John, vice-president for computational biology and genomics at Biogen, said: "We are committed to advancing evidence-based target discovery and opening up the field for researchers to create innovative methods and tools to accelerate the development of new medicines."