The Translational Medicine Research Collaboration (TMRC), a unique venture bringing together one of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies with Scotland's finest medical research centres, has announced the second round of research projects to be funded through the initiative.
Almost £15.5 million of funding has been released to support 39 new research projects covering a wide range of therapeutic areas including cardiovascular and metabolic disease, the central nervous system, women's health, inflammation and oncology. Four of these projects were initiated in late 2007 and the remainder will start soon across the four academic partner sites in Scotland.
These new investments build on almost £8 million of project funding released in December 2006 to support 28 research programmes. Wyeth has already committed in excess of its minimum project funding of $45 million ahead of schedule.
The first phase of TMRC created in excess of 100 new jobs in the universities and at the TMRC core laboratory located at the University of Dundee, with employment expected to double through the next phase of TMRC.
The collaboration comprises four of Scotland's leading universities (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow), Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc., Scottish Enterprise and NHS Scotland Grampian, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lothian and Tayside, and provides new impetus for Scotland to lead the world in the development of personalised medicine, bringing new treatments to patients suffering from a range of serious illnesses.
Professor Andrew Morris, chair of the TMRC Steering Group, said, "This second major injection of medical research funding into the Centres of Excellence across Scotland is an important milestone for TMRC and strong endorsement for the value that has already been created. The spirit of collaboration between the partners continues to build, and we are all firmly focused on delivering valuable patient benefits and shared commercial success for all partners".
Frank Walsh, executive vice president of Wyeth Discovery Research, said, "We remain very impressed by the quality of the science and innovation being generated as part of this collaboration. The latest round of projects is likely to generate meaningful scientific data which will have a real impact on the quality of new therapies being developed as well as the speed with which we can deliver these to patients".
Jack Perry, chief executive of Scottish Enterprise which committed funding of up to £17.5m to the collaboration, said, "Wyeth has been an outstanding partner in this collaboration, delivering more than they promised earlier than forecast. The TMRC is a great example of the harnessing of Scotland's capabilities to deliver world class research which will realise commercial benefits for both Wyeth and all of the Scottish partners".