Celgene announces new cancer research alliance

Celgene has announced a new cancer research alliance with a newly-established consortium of four academic institutions.

The Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University Medical Center, the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, and the Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have established the multi-institutional consortium.

Aiming to discover and develop novel cancer therapeutics and diagnostics, the consortium will work to support the rapid delivery of disease-altering programmes to the clinic that can benefit cancer patients, global healthcare systems and society.

Celgene has agreed four separate public-private collaboration agreements, paying $12.5 million (9.4 million pounds) to each institution, for the option to develop and commercialise novel cancer drugs arising from the consortium's research.

The institutions will present multiple high-impact research programmes to Celgene over the next decade, with the goal of developing new life-saving therapeutics potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Bob Hugin, executive chairman of Celgene, said: "We remain firmly committed to driving critical advances in cancer and believe the tremendous expertise of our collaboration partner institutions will be invaluable in identifying new therapies for cancer patients."