The Scripps Research Institute and the California Institute for Biomedical Research are to merge, ScienceInsider reports.
Merck established the California Institute for Biomedical Research in 2012 as a nonprofit drug-development institute aimed at helping academics translate their basic research, and Scripps researcher Peter Schultz took its helm.
Now, ScienceInsider says the two institutes are joining forces. Schultz says the merger will enable new therapies to be developed more quickly and that any funds raised will feed back into the institute to support research. "We will generate significant revenues, which will be reinvested in the entire enterprise," Schultz says. ScienceInsider notes that if that comes to pass, it will help Scripps as the institute has been grappling with lower federal funding levels.
Schultz also tells ScienceInsider that other efforts to integrate basic and translational research falter because of their differing cultures, one focused on individual investigators and the other on teamwork, but that they should be able to avoid that pitfall. "We aren't building from scratch; rather we are integrating the strengths of two proven nonprofit research organizations," he says.