[CANCELLED] The Tres Cantos OpenLab: Filling the Translational Gap in Neglected Diseases Drug Discovery

The drug discovery process for the diseases of the developing world (DDW) in the pharmaceutical industry is challenging due to the large investment and low financial return. Therefore, innovative strategies are required to discover and develop new pharmaceuticals against Diseases of the Developing World.
Since 2010, GlaxoSmithKline has adopted an open innovation strategy promoting collaboration and transfer of knowledge among the scientific community, with the final aim to deliver new effective medicines for the DDW. Within our open innovation approach, the Open Lab program has been created to facilitate the translation of basic research in the DDW field into industrial scale. The Open Lab offers the GSK Tres Cantos site (Spain) to scientists from around the world to work on their own DDW projects, providing them the drug discovery expertise and state-of-the-art facilities of the pharmaceutical industry. Results are shared with the broader community to accelerate and motivate research in DDW. Over the last seven years, the Open Lab has funded more than 72 projects and has hosted more than 85 visiting scientists from world class institutions. Focused on developing tools, platforms, exploiting targets and discovering novel molecules to tackle malaria, tuberculosis, kinetoplastid and enteric diseases, we expect the Open Lab portfolio to expand and provide a range of exciting drug discovery opportunities that could deliver new effective medicines for the least developed countries.

Opportunities in the discovery and pre-clinical space will be discussed in this communication.