WIKIMEDIA, CALVERO
The new translational medicine center at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) took a major step Wednesday (June 19) towards fulfilling its mission of speeding drug development: the 19-month-old National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) announced nine awardees for its ambitious program aimed at repurposing abandoned drugs.
The Discovering New Therapeutic Uses for Existing Molecules program, which will receive $12.7 million from the NIH Common Fund, will give academic scientists a crack at producing viable therapeutics from drugs cast off by the pharmaceutical industry. The drugs, which came from eight pharmaceutical companies including AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Janssen Research and Development, and Pfizer, have already been proven to be safe in humans, but failed due to ineffectiveness against their intended targets or for business reasons. ...
