Boston Biomedical announced it had launched an oncology research alliance with Columbia University, Harvard University and The Wistar Institute.
Boston Biomedical announced it had launched an oncology research alliance with Columbia University, Harvard University and The Wistar Institute.
Boston Biomedical, along with Tolero Pharmaceuticals, is a subsidiary of Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma. Together they make up the Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Group. As part of this alliance, all of the Group will gain access to novel targets and platform technologies that may come out of Columbia, Harvard and Wistar during the course of the five-year agreement.
“We are thrilled to be collaborating with the distinguished scientists at Columbia University, Harvard University and The Wistar Institute,” said Mahmoud Mahmoudian, senior vice president, Head of Global Oncology External Innovation, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Global Oncology. “We will leverage this commitment to innovation to bring together the wealth of expert knowledge housed in these academic institutions and our Group to work on unique themes, with the goal of delivering innovative new drugs to patients.”
The Group has also established a Global Oncology External Innovation Hub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This is designed to improve collaborations with external organizations.
Orin Herskowitz, executive director of Columbia Technology Ventures at Columbia University, Isaac Kohlberg, chief technology development officer and senior associate provost at Harvard University, and Heather Steinman, vice president of Business Development and executive director of Technology Transfer at The Wistar Institute issued a joint statement, saying, “We are deeply appreciative of the investment Boston Biomedical has made to establish this strategic research alliance, which aims to advance discovery and innovation in oncology for patients’ benefit. This foundational support furthers our institutions’ commitment to drive innovation for tomorrow’s discoveries and advancements in oncology.”
These institutions are all making news for their external activities. On November 25, Harvard University announced participation in creating a new center for advanced biological innovation and manufacturing with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies (FDB), GE Healthcare Life Sciences, and Alexandria Real Estate Equities. It will also include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, MilliporeSigma, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The Wistar Institute on November 14 announced a postdoctoral training exchange program in immunology, cancer research and vaccine biology with Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) in the Netherlands. The Wistar-Schoemaker International Postdoctoral Fellowship will allow LUMC PhD graduates to conduct fellowships at Wistar, located in Philadelphia.
And earlier this year, in June, Columbia partnered with Alexandria Real Estate Equities to open Alexandria LaunchLabs, a life science startup platform on Columbia’s Washington Heights campus. The LaunchLabs is scheduled to open in the spring of 2020. It will offer member companies 14,000 square feet of collaborative co-working space, shared and private laboratories and offices, and company-building support and access to seed-stage investment capital.
“Columbia University is committed to supporting and promoting a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, and over the recent years we have witnessed an unprecedented growth in the number of startups based on technologies developed in Columbia’s research labs,” said Herskowitz at the time. “We look forward to this partnership with Alexandria that will pave the way for Columbia and our peers to launch more and stronger startups, faster than ever.”
