Centers for Therapeutic Innovation
Translating Leading Science into Clinical Candidates Through Networked Collaboration
Overview — Reinventing Partnership
The Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI), a newly created, entrepreneurial Research Unit at Pfizer, Inc. is dedicated to the establishment of global partnerships between Academic Medical Centers (AMCs) and Pfizer to transform research and development through a focus on translational medicine.
During the first 10 years of this century, progress in biology and other fields relevant to pharmaceutical innovation has been revolutionary. Innovative science has the potential to radically change the way we treat disease, but it typically takes a long time and requires significant financial investment for novel findings to be translated into testable clinical hypotheses. The pervasiveness of the gap between early science and translation into clinical applications presents an opportunity for industry and academia to collaborate in an unprecedented manner through CTI. The CTI focus is on biotherapeutic modalities (antibodies, peptides, proteins) across all therapeutic areas.
CTI is a pioneering open-innovation partnering model that Pfizer designed to accelerate drug discovery and development. CTI laboratory staff include Pfizer employees working side-by-side with leading basic and translational science investigators and post-docs from the AMCs. This model offers leading investigators the resources to pursue scientific and clinical breakthroughs by providing access to select Pfizer compound libraries, proprietary screening methods, and antibody development technologies that are directly relevant to the investigators' work.
The CTI collaborative model will effectively and efficiently combine the best ideas, research and expertise of the AMC with Pfizer's technology and resources. The result of this integration will be better testing of clinical hypotheses, increasing the speed with which we establish Proof-of-Mechanism (PoM) and ultimately bring truly differentiated medicines to patients in need.
CTI is:
- A collaboration to discover and develop biologic therapeutic candidates from early research through Proof-of-Mechanism in humans
- A jointly-staffed laboratory, allowing easy access to Pfizer tools and technology, located on or near university campuses
- An opportunity to translate research programs from the lab to the clinic, working collaboratively with Pfizer scientists
- A model that enables ongoing career advancement through research and publication, while creating significant financial opportunities through milestones and royalties
We believe that the combination of the operating model, financial resources and scientific expertise within the CTI will bring novel programs to the clinic to benefit investigators, their institutions and most importantly, patients.
Results To-Date
CTI has established partnerships with 20 leading academic medical centers across the United States, and supports collaborative projects from four dedicated labs ý in Boston, New York City, San Francisco, and San Diego.
CTI received well over 300 proposals from its first round of applications, and to-date has selected approximately twenty programs to initiate in partnership with the proposing PIs. Funded programs span a broad range of therapeutic areas, including oncology, inflammation, infectious disease, and cardiovascular/metabolic disease.
