Pfizer partners with university to develop new uses for drugs

Eager to make the most of current products even as its pipeline of new drugs has setbacks, Pfizer Inc. announced Monday a first-of-its-kind collaboration to find new uses for familiar remedies.

The collaboration, which begins this week and is covered in a five-year agreement, will give researchers at Washington University in St. Louis unprecedented access to information about Pfizer's products. The company said it's likely scientists at Pfizer laboratories in Groton will be among those exchanging information with university researchers.

"We expect certain investigator proposals to be of relevance and interest to research colleagues in Groton, which may lead to collaborations," said Pfizer spokeswoman Anne Wilson in an e-mail. "Neuroscience and anti-bacterial colleagues in Groton already have relationships with some investigators at Washington University."

Pfizer will provide $22.5 million to researchers at the university's medical school, along with extensive data about 500 of its drugs, which it will make available to key researchers through a special online portal. Previously, drug companies had been reluctant to share proprietary information about their drugs with outsiders.

"By sharing Pfizer's data on existing compounds, researchers will not have to replicate extensive preclinical studies, thereby shaving years off the time it takes to evaluate new uses for existing drugs," Pfizer said in a release.

The agreement comes at a key time for Pfizer, which is within a year and a half of losing exclusivity in the United States for its blockbuster cholesterol medication Lipitor, with about $13 billion in worldwide sales last year. Pfizer also has faced a rash of drug-trial failures in recent months, most notably for Dimebon, a hoped-for Alzheimer's remedy.

Pfizer said it plans to investigate, through the Washington University collaboration, the uses for drugs already marketed as well as those whose development has been stalled. As new uses for remedies are found, the company said, Pfizer and the university will negotiate terms to allow drug commercialization to proceed.

The collaboration - which will focus on a range of diseases, including Alzheimer's, cancer, asthma and diabetes - builds on previous agreements between the two organizations. Pfizer and university scientists will sit on an advisory committee to evaluate proposals for new research, and the project is being headed by company executive Don Frail.

Pfizer said the potential for success in what is known as indications discovery has increased over the years. That's because scientists understand more about how diseases progress at a molecular level and how patients respond to medications based on their genetic makeup, Pfizer said.

"Those drugs that do succeed typically have multiple uses," Frail, chief scientific officer in Pfizer's indications discovery unit, said in a statement. "The collaboration seeks to discover entirely new uses for these compounds in areas of high patient need that might otherwise be left undiscovered."

Pfizer, which has its largest worldwide research-and-development contingent in Groton and New London, plans to move its indications discovery laboratories from Chesterfield, Mo., to a biotech corridor adjacent to Washington University, the company said.

"This is a tremendous opportunity for both partners," Jeffrey Gordon, director of the university's Center for Genome Sciences, said in a statement. "By creating this innovative new framework, academic and pharmaceutical researchers can collaborate in ways that are mutually advantageous for the university, Pfizer and society to meet the needs of patients."