UCB and Weill Cornell Medical College agree new alliance

UCB has announced the launch of a new strategic research alliance with Weill Cornell Medical College, focusing on areas of high patient need.

The company will ally with the New York-based college on three initial discovery programmes that aim to convert recent scientific discoveries into transformative health improvements in key areas.

Focusing on bone disorders, metabolic disease and rare genetic variant analysis, the programmes are aligned with UCB NewMedicines' strategy of focusing on the discovery of medicines targeting pathways with a high level of genetic and human validation.

This comes as part of UCB's wider efforts to ally with leading academic partners to accelerate the progress of its scientific research.

Ismail Kola, executive vice-president and president of new medicines at UCB, said: "This strategic research alliance brings together Weill Cornell's world-class academic research with our discovery team with the shared objective of developing medicines that could transform the lives of people with severe diseases."

It comes after the company announced last month that it will be collaborating with Sanofi on the development of new therapies for immune-mediated diseases.