Broad Institute signs deals to boost medical research

The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT has committed itself to tackling complex therapeutic challenges concerning unmet medical needs, while also signing a deal on technology.

In the first of the partnerships, both of which were announced on Tuesday, October 10, the Broad confirmed a collaboration with Deerfield Management, an investment firm, which will fund early-stage academic research.

The Broad claimed this is the first time a “major” investment outfit has worked with an academic research organisation to pursue “transformative, early-stage therapeutics research”. Deerfield will contribute $50 million over a five-year period.

According to the Broad, the partnership will align with its “principles for disseminating scientific innovations”, which require IP to be shared with other academic organisations.

With the second agreement, the Broad said that Richard Merkin, CEO of Heritage Provider Network, has agreed to create the Merkin Institute for Transformative Technologies in Healthcare at the Broad.

Pointing to the impact that technology can have on accelerating biological research, the Broad highlighted DNA-encoded libraries that make it possible to simultaneously screen hundreds of thousands of chemicals to identify drug leads.

The Broad said traditional grants are not effective in supporting technology development, so the Merkin Institute will fund “novel, early-stage ideas aimed at advancing powerful technological approaches for improving how we understand and treat disease”.

Eric Lander, president of the Broad, said biomedicine is undergoing a “remarkable revolution” driven by advances in technologies that allow scientists to collaborate and gain insights in ways that were barely imaginable a few years ago.

“Putting these tools in the hands of scientists around the world can have a huge effect on biomedical progress, and the Merkin Institute for Transformative Technologies in Healthcare will be a key player in advancing this.”

Commenting on the first deal, he added that over the last decade, scientific advances have made it possible to rapidly understand the biological basis of disease at “unprecedented resolution”. However, the challenge now is to develop ways to speed up the process of turning these scientific insights into therapies that benefit patients, he said.

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