Repurposing TIN webinar: How partnership drives innovation

This Repurposing TIN webinar series will address some of the challenges in the Drug Repurposing space described in the seminars held during 2020. The focus of these new webinars will be on technological and commercial/regulatory aspects worth exploring to support the UCL community and will count on the invaluable contribution of external partners from industry, not-for-profit organisations, charities and patient groups.

The COVID-19 pandemic has thought us that pharmaceutical companies and academics can contribute in a highly complementary way to the discovery of novel repurposing medications. There is growing realisation that in order to move projects closer to translation, reduce the costs and more importantly bring effective treatments to patients a collaborative approach is needed. This may involve pharmaceutical companies providing access to valuable chemical libraries and screening technologies, biotechnology companies and academia sharing knowledge on new areas of disease biology or patient organisations supporting clinical trials or funding their own research.

In the third seminar of the Repurposing TIN series our speakers, from industry, biotech, charities and non-profit organisations, will explore how new collaborative models with multi-stakeholder partnerships are being employed to maximise synergy among different sectors and the impact that such models have had in certain fields of medicine (e.g. rare and paediatric disorders and oncology) where drug repurposing plays a prominent role. We will also discuss what major opportunities and pitfalls to look out for in drug repurposing partnering.

Agenda:

• 14:30-14:35 Welcome and Introduction of the TINs (Asha Recino, Coordinator of the Repurposing Therapeutic Innovation Network)
• 14:35-14:40 Opening Remarks (Oscar Della Pasqua, Chair of the Repurposing Therapeutic Innovation Network)
• 14:40-14:50 AstraZeneca Open Innovation: Advancing Science through Collaboration (Kelly Gray – AstraZeneca)
• 14:50-15:00 Patient-Group Partnerships as a Repurposing Catalyst (Rick Thompson – Findacure)
• 15:00-15:10 AMO-02/ Tideglusib: A Case Example of the Role of Academia in Establishing Proof-of-Concept in an Ultra-Orphan Condition (Joe Horrigan- AMO-Pharma)
• 15:10-15:20 From Candidate Selection to Clinical Trial – Drug Repurposing in Oncology (Pan Pantziarka- Anticancer Fund)
• 15:25-15:35 EPTRI, a Strategic Multi-Stakeholder Partnership for Paediatric Research (Donato Bonifazi-Consorzio per Valutazioni Biologiche e Farmacologiche (CVBF))
• 15:35-15:45 A Clinical Development Programme Successfully Led by a Patient Group to Repurpose the Drug Nitisinone for the Ultra Rare Genetic Disease Alkaptonuria (Nick Sireau- AKU Society)
• 15:45-15:55 Opportunities and Pitfalls When Partnering on the Use of AI to Drive Drug Repositioning (Aris Persidis- Biovista)
• 16:00-16:30 Questions from the Audience and Panel Discussion

Who Should Attend?

Basic and translational researchers at all career stages and currently involved/or planning to work in the Drug Repurposing space are encouraged to attend. The Repurposing TIN aims to reach out to researchers interested in what research questions to ask when repositioning drugs that are already on the market, and in getting the right type of support at the right time.

We’d also like to invite existing and potential industry partners to attend, as we provide insights into the work of the TINs to accelerate the translation of biomedical discoveries into viable therapeutics.