AstraZeneca will collaborate with the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB) to fund a range of preclinical research projects aimed at better understanding the biology of disease.

Projects supported by the fund are likely to involve scientists from the two organizations working side by side, either within the MRC LMB at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, the site of the company’s future strategic R&D center and global corporate headquarters, or in AstraZeneca and MedImmune research facilities. AstraZeneca would contribute up to $10 million and MRC LMB up to $5 million over five years, as well as in-kind scientific input to share knowledge and technologies. Decisions on which projects will receive support from the fund will be made jointly by MRC LMB and AstraZeneca.

Menelas Pangalos, executive vice president of innovative medicines and early development at AstraZeneca, said, “The aim of this joint fund will be to encourage truly innovative scientific thinking. We want to enable and encourage our scientists to push the boundaries of science, on the door step of our Cambridge headquarters, with one of the best scientific institutes in the world.”

Projects supported by the fund would be pre-competitive and would not be targeted specifically toward drug development, but would feed into the existing R&D activities of the two organizations, with the results published in peer-reviewed journals.