GSK's Axel Hoos. Credit: GlaxoSmithKline

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has launched a collaborative research network with six leading cancer research centers. The Oncology Clinical and Translational Consortium (OCTC), announced in December, partners the London-based pharma with three renowned clinical research centers in Europe—the Gustave Roussy Institute in Villejuif, France; Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam; and Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology in Barcelona, Spain—and three in North America: the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto; the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston; and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York. “GSK has chosen institutes that it can trust,” says Ferran Prat, vice president Strategic Industry Ventures at MD Anderson Cancer Center. OCTC will tap into the academics' expertise to identify prospective novel drug combinations and single agents as anticancer therapeutics, including kinase inhibitors, epigenome modulating compounds and immunotherapies. The company will open up data from its early-stage oncology pipeline, including agents in phase 1 and 2, to the external researchers. What makes the OCTC different from other pharma-academia collaborations is that the company is giving academics the opportunity to work with current pipeline products rather than compounds that have been shelved. This is a risky move on GSK's part. Even when confidentiality agreements are in place, data leakage is possible. But Axel Hoos, vice president, oncology R&D at GSK, explains that companies have always shared pipeline information with collaborators, and the benefits of open collaborations override the risks. For the academics involved, GSK has promised total freedom to publish the outcomes of their research, whether positive or negative. Before signing up, academics need to prepare themselves, too. “Academic institutions should assure themselves that there is a mutual interest in the project, a good understanding by the industry partner of the way academia works and a clear vision of the intended outcomes,” says Angela Kukula, director of enterprise at the Institute of Cancer Research, London.