18th May 2012
Firms invest £14m in disease research at Dundee
BBC News 14 May 2012 Last updated at 12:18
A consortium of major pharmaceutical firms is to invest more than £14m in a Dundee-based research project which aims to combat global diseases.
The four-year funding package will focus on the development of new drug treatments at the University of Dundee.
The consortium includes AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Merck-Serono and Pfizer.
The funding will secure 50 posts at Dundee.
The consortium, known as the Division of Signal Transduction Therapy (DSTT), will provide core financial support from July 2012 until 2016.
The funding was announced by the University of Dundee and the Medical Research Council (MRC).
DSTT, which is believed to be the world’s largest collaboration between the academic community and the pharmaceutical industry, includes 15 research teams based at Dundee.
Thirteen of the teams are based at the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit and Scottish Institute for Cell Signalling (SCILLS) at the College of Life Sciences.
Together, consortium scientists will continue early-stage research in multiple areas, including cancer, arthritis, lupus, hypertension and Parkinson’s disease.