The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD), its commercial arm, CDRD Ventures (CVI), and global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in have entered into a strategic collaboration that will provide new financial resources as well as leading drug development expertise to be applied to the development and commercialization of health research conducted in Canadian research institutions.

GSK will provide project-based funding to support the commercialization of health research. The first such vehicle is a "GSK-CDRD Innovation Fund" within CDRD to support certain early-stage projects to be conducted by CDRD and carried out in collaboration with academic investigators at CDRD's affiliated institutions and/or hospital-based research centers. A joint innovation committee comprised of both GSK and CDRD representatives, as well as external reviewers, will review and select the projects to be supported from this fund.

The second fund is a joint venture with CVI that will see additional funds invested in advancing projects further towards commercialization. Under this collaborative relationship, CVI will then conduct (or manage the conduct of) multiple selected research projects to be partially funded by GSK with the goal of commercializing the technology and resulting intellectual property.

"This is a very important collaboration for us, as notably, GSK will be the first pharmaceutical industry organization to work with both CDRD and CDRD Ventures," said Natalie Dakers, president and CEO, CDRD and CVI. "These funds represent a novel continuum of funding resulting in a greater pool of resources being available to support health research projects at our various stages of development, whether they are very early projects in CDRD or more mature projects that have been advanced into CVI."

Rav Kumar, vice president of regulatory affairs, GSK, added, "Unique collaborations of this nature provide a highly effective way of progressing and commercializing the innovative health research conducted at Canadian public institutions—with the ultimate goal of making a real difference in the lives of patients."