Newswise — BOSTON – Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) announced today the expansion of its partnership with Pfizer’s Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI) into the identification and development of small-molecule drug candidates. This agreement, the first small-molecule partnership in Boston for CTI, will provide BIDMC investigators with access to Pfizer’s small-molecule, drug-discovery capabilities, expanding upon a highly successful collaboration focused on a biologics therapeutic approach established in March 2011.

” CTI will be able to leverage Pfizer’s deep, drug-discovery expertise, technology and capabilities in small-molecule discovery with basic and translational science at BIDMC” said Anthony Coyle, PhD, CTI’s Chief Scientific Officer. “With Pfizer’s long track record in medicinal chemistry and BIDMC’s outstanding research work, we hope to bring targeted, more effective therapies to patients quickly.”

“We are extremely pleased to further extend this important collaboration,” said BIDMC Chief Academic Officer Vikas P. Sukhatme, MD, PhD. “Our partnership with Pfizer has proven highly fruitful, bringing together the strengths of academic medicine and industry as we work towards accelerating the translation of biomedical research into new medications and therapies. This new alliance brings our scientists another step closer to potentially seeing their research make a difference to the lives of patients.”

Under the terms of the new agreement, BIDMC investigators will continue to work side-by-side with Pfizer scientists with the goal of jointly translating promising basic research into new drug candidates. CTI will provide BIDMC with funding and scientific expertise to support pre-clinical and clinical development of small-molecule research programs. If drug candidates achieve agreed-upon objectives, the partnership between CTI and BIDMC could move from discovery into clinical trials, leading to potential milestone payments from Pfizer to BIDMC in the event a product is commercialized.

The rollout of the small-molecule program will take place at BIDMC immediately.

About BIDMCBeth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School and currently ranks third in National Institutes of Health funding among independent hospitals nationwide. BIDMC has a network of community partners that includes Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Milton, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham, Anna Jaques Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Lawrence General Hospital, Signature Health Care, Commonwealth Hematology-Oncology, Beth Israel Deaconess HealthCare, Community Care Alliance, and Atrius Health. BIDMC is also clinically affiliated with the Joslin Diabetes Center and Hebrew Senior Life and is a research partner of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox. For more information, visit www.bidmc.org.

About CTI

Pfizer’s Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI) is dedicated to the establishment of partnerships with Academic Medical Centers (AMCs) to transform research and development through a focus on translational medicine. CTI is an open innovation network with 23 leading AMCs focused on joint discovery and development of therapeutics, from early research through clinical proof-of-mechanism in humans. This model offers leading investigators the resources to pursue potential scientific and clinical breakthroughs by providing access to select Pfizer compound libraries, proprietary screening methods and antibody development technologies that are directly relevant to the investigators’ work. The aim is to translate scientific ideas into clinically-differentiated candidates ready for evaluation in a stratified patient population. CTI laboratories include Pfizer employees working side-by-side with leading investigators and post-doctoral researchers from the AMCs. The CTI collaborative model effectively and efficiently combines the best ideas, research and expertise of the AMCs with Pfizer’s experience, technology and resources. For more information about CTI, visit http://www.pfizer.com/research/rd_works/centers_for_therapeutic_innovation.jsp

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