NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Sigma-Aldrich today said it is partnering with the Scripps Research Institute to develop and commercialize new reagents.
The deal, the company said, will "fund research and provide immediate day-of-publication access to [Scripps] researchers' discoveries for the synthesis and analysis of potential drugs," and, further, could "eliminate months from the translation of cutting-edge chemistry into widespread applications for drug discovery."
Six research labs at the institute are part of the partnership. They include those led by Phil Baran; Jin-Quan Yu; Benjamin Cravatt; Carlos Barbas; Phillip Dawson; and K. Barry Sharpless. Funds will be provided to Scripps to expand basic research, Sigma-Aldrich said, adding it will exclusively commercialize reagents developed by the six labs through a master licensing agreement.
"The hurdles from bench to clinic, what the NIH calls the 'valley of death', are proving difficult to surmount, leaving numbers of potential therapeutic ideas trapped inside university doors," Amanda Halford, VP of Academic Research for Sigma-Aldrich, said in a statement. "To clear these hurdles, it's critical to open a myriad of novel technologies, such as these from [Scripps], to the whole translational research community."
Financial and other terms were not disclosed.