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Bayer, DKFZ extend existing alliance to develop new cancer therapies

Bayer HealthCare and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have extended their strategic research alliance for another five years to develop new cancer therapies.

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Since 2009, the two partners have been working together on the development of novel treatment options for cancer patients.

Over the next five years, Bayer and DKFZ will jointly invest about EUR30m in the cooperation to jointly address the large unmet medical need in cancer therapy and diagnosis.

Bayer HealthCare member of the Executive Committee and head of Global Drug Discovery Andreas Busch said the company is looking forward to another five years of fruitful collaboration with the DKFZ.

"Together we have already initiated twenty-eight projects and twelve projects have reached important milestones," Busch said.

"The DKFZ’s scientific excellence as Germany’s largest biomedical research institute perfectly matches with Bayer’s proven drug discovery and development expertise.

"There is still a huge medical need in the treatment of a number of tumor types and cancer in general."

The agreement shows Bayer’s ongoing commitment to develop new therapies that can help patients suffering from cancer.

DKFZ CEO Otmar Wiestler said the strategic alliance with Bayer HealthCare over the past five years has been extremely successful.

"Together we are able to advance promising projects with the prospect of reaching the clinic and hopefully the patients," Wiestler said.

"Increasingly, we can build on the excellent results of our basic research and transfer them to the clinic.

"For successful translation, we need strong partners: both in the clinic, where we can rely on the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) in Heidelberg and on the German Consortium for Translational Cancer Research, and in industry."

The collaboration started in 2009 aimed at finding and exploiting molecules, mechanisms and models as new starting points for the development of innovative anticancer therapeutics.

In addition, the parties are working to develop new methods of diagnosis to monitor the individual course of disease and treatment progress, and help to predict the treatment success.

To date, 28 joint anti-cancer projects have been started and 20 of these are currently ongoing.

So far, a total of twelve projects has already reached important milestones and moved on to the next phase of drug discovery namely compound screening to identify new potential drug candidates.

Both the parties will jointly decide on the start, continuation and management of projects.

Early in 2013, the parties have further extended their strategic research alliance by also focusing on the field of immunotherapy for which scientists from both partners work together in a joint laboratory located at the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) in Heidelberg, Germany.


Image: Over the next five years, Bayer and DKFZ will jointly invest EUR30m to develop new cancer therapies. Photo: courtesy of Bayer HealthCare AG.