Takeda Pharmaceutical has joined the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), based at the Universities of Toronto and Oxford, England, to fund collective drug research aimed at bringing new, more effective medicines to market faster.

Takeda’s contribution raises the total to $50 million supporting the SGC by six of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies engaged in drug discovery, bolstering the pre-competitive approach to drug research. The addition by Takeda represents a significant increase in industry funding from the previous four years, when three drug makers provided $13 million in funds.

SGC is one of the largest ever public-private drug discovery partnerships. It identifies and maps the three-dimensional structure of human proteins, which are the targets for drug discovery. Learning about the precise structure of human proteins provides important clues to discover new drugs.

The new agreement with SGC increases the profile of more than 200 scientists from academia and industry who make all early-stage research openly available with no patents or restrictions. The SGC’s research network helps Takeda promote its drug discovery efforts by accessing new research first hand. The company also can influence the research direction of the SGC network by participating on the SGC Scientific Committee and its board of directors.

“This is a strong endorsement of a novel business model, which relies on collaboration to share the risks of early-stage research, and reduce costs of drug discovery so we can get effective new medicines to market faster, and into the hands of physicians and patients sooner,” said Aled Edwards, the Canada-based chief executive, SGC.