Janssen launches new schizophrenia research project OPTICS

Janssen has announced the launch of the OPTICS project, an initiative promoting open translational science research in the field of schizophrenia.

The company will ally with a group of leading research organisations on this initiative, with current collaborators including Yale University School of Medicine, Rutgers University, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and the US National Institute of Mental Health.

Aiming to create a new forum for collaborative analysis, the project will pool Janssen's clinical trial data with information available from the National Institutes of Health to advance scientific knowledge about the disease and create new models for conducting research.

It will be the first time information about the causes of the disorder and data from clinical trials of therapies will be available to researchers in one place.

Dr Husseini Manji, global head of the neuroscience therapeutic area at Janssen Research and Development, said: "OPTICS will foster open-science collaborations and lead to new fundamental insights about schizophrenia so that we can improve therapies and treatments and ultimately find a cure."

Janssen is expecting to achieve considerable growth between now and 2019, a period that will see it file for approval of more than ten products with billion-dollar potential.