Dr. Frances Collins, NIH Director, recently announced the launching of the Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP) which will “strive to identify better targets so we can develop better drugs at a faster pace.” Participants include the NIH, Foundation for the NIH, 10 biopharmaceutical firms (AbbVie, Biogen Idec, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Lilly, Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi, Takeda) and several non-profit organizations and patient-advocacy groups (Alzheimer’s Association, American Diabetes Association, Lupus Foundation of America, Foundation for the NIH, Geoffrey Beene Foundation, PhRMA, Rheumatology Research Foundation, USAgainstAlzheimer’s).
The AMP will begin by investing $230 million in pilot projects in three disease areas:
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Autoimmune Disorders (Lupus and Rheumatoid arthritis)
The cost will be shared 50% by NIH and private industry. The 3-5 year pilot projects will set the stage for broadening AMP to other diseases and conditions. This joint collaboration will take advantage of “recent advances in genomics, proteomics, imaging, and other technologies which have led to the discovery of more than a thousand risk factors for common diseases—biological changes that ought to hold promise as targets for drugs,” stated Dr. Collins in a press conference on February 4th, at Washington, DC.
To read more about AMP, please visit the website at: http://www.nih.gov/science/amp/index.htm