Pfizer also signed a lease at the Alexandria Center for Life Science.
Pfizer has added seven New York City research hospitals to its Global Centers for Therapeutic Innovation, a network of partnerships that aims to speed the translation of biomedical research into life-saving medicines. In addition, Pfizer has signed a lease at the Alexandria Center for Life Science, a move that extends the company’s long relationship with the New York City area.
The list of new institutions includes Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, Columbia University Medical Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, The Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York University Langone Medical Center, Rockefeller University, and Weill Cornell Medical College. The network was launched in November 2010, with the University of California, San Francisco as the first partnering center.
Pfizer aims to establish local centers at different partner sites that enable the company and academic medical center teams to work side by side. As part of the agreement, the company will make its antibody libraries and advanced research tools available to partners. It will also fund preclinical and clinical development programs. Additionally, Pfizer will offer its partners equitable intellectual property and ownership rights to support continued experimentation and exploration as well as broad rights to publication.
“Pfizer’s decision to bring its Centers for Therapeutic Innovation program to New York City is the latest affirmation of the city’s excellence in biomedical research and prominence as a center for innovation,” says New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “Pfizer has called New York City home for more than 160 years, and its presence at the state-of-the-art Alexandria Center for Life Science, together with its new partnerships with some of the City’s top academic medical centers, will help keep it at the forefront of discovery.”
The Centers for Therapeutic Innovation will initially focus on collaborations within the U.S. and build the network at other U.S.-based medical institutions and is expected to expand into Europe and Asia in 2012. Each center will be governed by a joint steering committee composed of Pfizer and academic medical center representatives who will provide leadership and evaluate the success of each program through discovery and early-stage clinical development.
