Media Releases

University of Toronto announces strategic collaboration with Janssen Inc. and Johnson & Johnson Innovation

September 8, 2014

Three-year agreement will support research on treatments for major brain disorders

TORONTO, ON — The Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to today announced a new strate­gic open inno­va­tion col­lab­o­ra­tion with Janssen Inc. facil­i­tat­ed by the John­son & John­son Inno­va­tion cen­ter of Cal­i­for­nia that will sup­port research through the Col­lab­o­ra­tive Cen­ter for Drug Research (CCDR). The three-year agree­ment will help iden­ti­fy and val­i­date new ther­a­peu­tic tar­gets that could advance clin­i­cal treat­ment for major brain dis­or­ders, includ­ing mood dis­or­ders and Alzheimer’s dis­ease.

“This is an impor­tant oppor­tu­ni­ty to enhance dis­cov­ery of new ther­a­peu­tics tar­get­ed at men­tal health and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­or­ders,” said Pro­fes­sor Catharine White­side, Dean of the Temer­ty Temer­ty Fac­ul­ty of Med­i­cine. She not­ed that con­di­tions such as demen­tia and depres­sion are on the rise world­wide affect­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions. “We must make inroads in tack­ling these health chal­lenges through inno­va­tion and strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion.”

This part­ner­ship is intend­ed to enhance the spir­it of dis­cov­ery and explo­ration in the field of neu­ro­science and men­tal health. Under the terms of the agree­ment, the CCDR will issue three calls for pro­pos­als over three years. Col­lab­o­ra­tive and open-source research projects will be solicit­ed from researchers at U of T and its affil­i­at­ed hos­pi­tals through the Toron­to Aca­d­e­m­ic Health Sci­ence Net­work. Sci­en­tists from Janssen will work with U of T researchers to pro­vide the drug dis­cov­ery exper­tise required to rapid­ly devel­op new med­i­cines from basic sci­ence inno­va­tions.

“The poten­tial for tremen­dous gains in human health can be found in work­ing togeth­er in an open inno­va­tion part­ner­ship,” said Pro­fes­sor Peter Lewis, U of T’s inter­im vice-pres­i­dent, research and inno­va­tion. “Janssen’s sup­port of open dis­cov­ery fur­thers U of T’s research goals, while iden­ti­fy­ing new ther­a­peu­tic options that can pro­vide new treat­ment options for patients.”

The CCDR was estab­lished in the spring of 2013 and brings togeth­er researchers from the Temer­ty Temer­ty Fac­ul­ty of Med­i­cine, the Leslie Dan Fac­ul­ty of Phar­ma­cy and the Cen­tre for Addic­tion and Men­tal Health (CAMH). The ulti­mate goal of the Neu­ro­science Cat­a­lyst is to work togeth­er in close part­ner­ship to tack­le the major chal­lenge of devel­op­ing new inno­v­a­tive treat­ments in the area of men­tal health and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion.

-30-

For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:

Liam Mitchell
Asso­ciate Direc­tor, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
Temer­ty Temer­ty Fac­ul­ty of Med­i­cine, Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Tel: 416–978-4672
liam.mitchell@utoronto.ca