Collaboration will benefit from institute’s research expertise and translational capabilities.
Novo Nordisk is partnering with Oxford University’s Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in the U.K. for the discovery and development of new biomarkers and drug targets for rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory autoimmune diseases. Under terms of the agreement, Novo Nordisk will fund 10 researchers at the Kennedy Institute to work within the partnership.
The Institute has in the past made key discoveries in the field of rheumatoid arthritis pathobiology, and its head, professor Sir Marc Feldman, M.D., was one of the co-discoverers of anti-TNF as a therapeutic approach to the disease. The translational research center will work in partnership with Novo Nordisk to apply its expertise to the discovery of new treatments.
“As a translational research center, we are keen to do clinical research on truly innovative ideas that have the potential to improve how patients with autoimmune inflammatory disease are treated today,” professor Feldman remarks. “We will work closely together with Novo Nordisk to apply the most advanced translational research approaches available for discovering new mechanisms and validating drug targets and candidates in autoimmune inflammatory disease in a variety of human disease tissue types and at different stages of disease, to ensure comprehensive characterization of each compound’s clinical potential.”
