Eli Lilly to drive innovation in drug discovery
Establishes Open Innovation Drug Discovery platform
Eli Lilly, the Indianapolis, US-based pharmaceutical firm, aims to build its future pipeline and identify molecules that may be used for treating multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) by launching its Open Innovation Drug Discovery platform.
This platform is supported by a secure website, at openinnovation.Lilly.com, that offers Lilly's proprietary computational and informatics tools to aid scientists in the design and selection of molecules.
The Open Innovation Drug Discovery platform aims to build on Lilly's Phenotypic Drug Discovery Initiative (PD2), launched in 2009 to facilitate research on molecules that have the potential to be developed into medicines.
There are three components to the new platform:
- TD2, or target drug discovery, that screens submitted molecules for their potential to interact with known disease targets;
- PD2, which continues to screen submitted molecules in complex cellular assays with the goal of identifying potential new medicines acting by novel mechanisms or pathways;
- Screening molecules for their potential in the fight against MDR-TB through the Lilly TB Drug Discovery Initiative.
In addition to focusing on research areas in which Lilly has an internal strategic focus and expertise, such as cancer, endocrine, cardiovascular and neuroscience, the open innovation platform will serve as a bridge between external scientists and the Lilly TB Drug Discovery Initiative, whose mission is to accelerate early-stage drug discovery and help identify the TB medicines of the future. Leading members of the Lilly TB Drug Discovery Initiative include the US-based Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
‘I think of Open Innovation Drug Discovery as a platform consisting of multiple superhighways all pointed towards the final destination of discovering novel medicines that we believe have the potential to improve patients' lives,’ said Alan Palkowitz, Lilly’s vice president of discovery chemistry research and technologies.
‘These superhighways connect scientists from all over the world with Lilly, for the common goal of finding new treatments for diseases where patients are in need and looking for answers, such as cancer, diabetes and MDR-TB.’
