杨森推出3个新研究平台 指导全球新药研发

杨森推出3个新研究平台 指导全球新药研发

  发布日期：2015-02-13  来源：生物谷  

强生推出3个新的研究平台，专注于疾病预防、疾病拦截、微生物组，以科技创新推动医疗创新，重新定义医疗保健，并实质改善患者生活质量及确保医疗系统的长期可持续性。

近日，强生（JNJ）旗下杨森研发（Janssen Research& Development，JRD）宣布推出3个新的研究平台，专注于疾病预防、疾病拦截和微生物组，推动科技创新，并以变革性的医疗创新，重新定义医疗保健。强生表示，新的团队将与旗下杨森五大治疗领域（心血管和代谢性疾病、免疫学、传染病和疫苗、神经科学、肿瘤学）及外部合作伙伴紧密合作，以支持正在开展的科学研究，推进这些极具潜力的领域中的科学知识，改变当前疾病的管理方式。

——杨森预防中心（Janssen PreventionCenter，JPC），将专注于慢性非传染性疾病（NCDs）的预防，如阿尔茨海默氏症、心脏疾病、癌症和自身免疫性疾病；随着人口老龄化，这些疾病正对全球医疗系统带来日益沉重的负担。JPC总部位于荷兰，并在荷兰（莱顿）、美国（拉荷亚）、英国（伦敦）设有实验室，JPC将充分利用强生旗下Crucell疫苗研究所拥有的世界一流的疫苗发现专业知识和能力，最终目标是确定和研究创新的解决方案，延长人类的健康寿命并降低发病率。

——疾病拦截加速器（Disease InterceptionAccelerator，DIA），是一个新的类似孵化器的组织，总部位于美国（拉里坦），该机构将专注于疾病的根本病因。与当前临床公认的诊断时间点相比，DIA将专注于更早的阶段，并寻求解决方案以终止、逆转或抑制疾病的恶化，如1型糖尿病和各类癌症。通过这种新方法，DIA的目的是在个体生病之前预测和预先制止疾病进展。DIA的工作是了解疾病的易感性、风险评估和应对疾病的起源，如遗传因素、环境暴露和表型变化。DIA将结合传统医药及非药物方法，来拦截高危人群的疾病进展，从而改善个体和社会的健康和福利。

——杨森人类微生物组研究所（Janssen HumanMicrobiome Institute，JHMI），将专注于一个新兴领域的科学——微生物组（microbiome），越来越多的研究证实，微生物组在人类健康中发挥着至关重要的作用。通过更好地了解微生物组，期望获得针对微生物组在疾病发生中重要作用的更深层次了解，并寻找新的治疗方法，以解决主要自身免疫性疾病和其他目前无充分治疗选择的疾病。通过尖端研究和全球协作网络，JHMI的目标是将微生物组科学转化为变革人类健康的治疗靶标和诊断能力。JHMI将通过美国（剑桥）和欧洲（贝尔泽，比利时）的研究中心促进外部合作。

当前，在全球大部分地区，人们的寿命比以往任何时候更长，但这同时也意味着个体更有可能数年甚至数十年处于健康欠佳的生活之中。因此，针对老龄及生活方式相关疾病的预防策略，存在着巨大的个人和社会经济需求。作为全球领先的医疗保健公司，强生表示，有责任推动医疗创新，实质性改变患者生活质量，并确保医疗系统的长期可持续性。

英文原文：J&J's R&D group crafts 3 new platforms to guide global drugdevelopment

J&J has craftedthree new research platforms designed to help its teams of investigators focuson a set of key strategic disease initiatives that will help guide theirmultibillion-dollar drug development program. And J&J—which is adding aninstitute for microbiome R&D along with a pioneering effort to prevent Type1 diabetes in the ramp-up - plans to use their central position in the researchstructure to help coordinate in-house work with their growing cast ofdevelopment partners around the world.

Raritan, NJ-basedJanssen Research & Development isn't changing its focus on 5 core diseasefields. But the pharma giant has been rethinking how to best go aboutcoordinating and improving a broad pipeline effort, now one of the top threepharma operations worldwide which consumes about $8 billion in costs everyyear. To that end, these new platforms will concentrate on disease prevention,disease interception and the fast-growing microbiome field.

This is all aboutnext-gen drug development, says William N. Hait, the global head of JanssenResearch & Development. By "identifying and correctly interpreting theearliest signals of disease susceptibility, preventing or intercepting diseasebefore it even begins, and using the latest scientific insights from promising,emerging fields like the microbiome," J&J can transform medicine.

"The threeprograms are part of an overall strategy, which we refer to as "Janssen2020," Hait tells FierceBiotech in an email. "The third pillar ofJanssen 2020 is "Explore New Spaces," of which disease interceptionis part.  The "vision thing" is that if we are successful withthis approach, in the future there will not be patients as we think of peoplewith disease today. Rather, we will have prevented, blocked/intercepted aprocess that if left unchecked would have led to illness. The interest inmicrobiome also stems from a desire to understand the factors that maintaingood health."

J&J has been aprolific dealmaker around the globe. R&D chief Paul Stoffels set up fourkey deal hubs in London, Boston, San Francisco and Shanghai to coordinate theirpartnering work worldwide. These new platforms are a way for the company tothink coherently about how all its research work fits together, providing aclear set of guiding principles while advancing the science needed to make surethat the drugs J&J is developing today are a clear advance for patients -capable of winning reimbursement - if and when they become approvedtherapeutics down the road.

In diseaseprevention J&J plans to concentrate its work on some huge targets:Alzheimer's, heart disease, cancer and autoimmune diseases, among others. Thegoal will be to spawn new therapies aimed broadly at improving longevity, andthey'll be absorbing the expertise of the Crucell Vaccine Institute, which wascreated following the 2011 Crucell buyout.

The first goal forthe company's disease interception platform will be to develop new diagnosticsand therapeutics that can identify Type 1 diabetes early and then stop it fromprogressing.

"Disease interception(which is described as an incubator-like effort) will intervene earlier thantoday's clinically accepted point of diagnosis and seek solutions that stop,reverse or inhibit progression to that disease, for instance type 1 diabetes orvarious forms of cancer," explained Benjamin Wiegand, Ph.D., Global Head,Disease Interception Accelerator.  "Through this novel approach, weaim to predict and pre-empt an individual from progressing to disease – beforethey get sick." Genetics, environmental factors and phenotypic alterationswill be studied to help guide research work.

J&J's newmicrobiome institute will help coordinate collaborations in one of the hottestfields in biotech, which is centered on the role teeming populations ofbacteria play in disease. "Through cutting-edge research and a globalcollaborative network, we aim to translate the science of the microbiome intotherapeutic targets and diagnostic capabilities that have the potential totransform human health," noted Dirk Gevers, who is heading it up. Theinstitute, the company adds, aims at fostering external collaborations throughits anchor research centers in Cambridge, MA and in Beerse, Belgium.

"ThePrevention Center derives from the former Crucell Vaccine Institute in Leidenand does not require re-locating," adds Hait. "Some reorganizationoccurred to move vaccines for communicable diseases into our InfectiousDiseases and Vaccines Therapeutic Area.  We envision that the JanssenHuman Microbiome Institute will have two locations; a major laboratory effortin Belgium on our Beerse Campus and a second location in CambridgeMassachusetts near our Innovation Center.  These new initiatives will becreating new partnerships in the relevant scientific areas."

Big pharma has amixed record in R&D. The top 10 companies spend about $70 billion a yeartrying to develop new products. And several of them have seen efforts toclarify and revive drug R&D flop badly. GlaxoSmithKline is now reorganizingR&D for the second time in 6 years. Sanofi is downsizing cancer R&Dthis week to reflect the failure of one of Chris Viehbacher's key initiatives.And big companies like Eli Lilly floundered for years, with some critics stillwondering if the company can get its act together and produce game-changing drugs.J&J has a long way to go before it can determine how this new strategyworks. But it is trying something new.