The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has expanded its collaboration with Bayer HealthCare to include cardiovascular genomics and drug discovery. The goal of this new part of the alliance is to leverage insights from human genetics to help create new cardiovascular therapies.

Cardiovascular genomics is an emerging field of cardiology that uses genomic information to characterize disease risk and identify new therapeutic targets for drug discovery. Cardiovascular disease is responsible for approximately one-third of all deaths worldwide each year. While a majority of cardiovascular disease can be associated with lifestyle factors such as tobacco consumption, diet and level of physical activity, risk genes can influence the predisposition to cardiovascular disease, age of onset and severity.

Broad Institute and Bayer HealthCare will collaborate on genetic discovery, target validation and drug discovery activities. Governance for this alliance will be comprised of a joint steering committee and joint research committee that will oversee research progress and direction. Financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.