NEOMED Awarded $12M Grant By Canada Government
NEOMED, an open-access R&D institute, announced that it has received a $12 million federal grant from the Canadian government to help advance discoveries of academic researchers into drug candidates.
The not-for-profit institute partners with academic labs and contract research organizations (CROs) to conduct drug discovery, preclinical, and clinical development. It was launched in 2012 with major funding from the Government of Quebec, as well as support from two big pharma companies, AstraZeneca and Pfizer. The new funding will enable NEOMED to support drug discovery following new academic discoveries.
The grant was awarded thanks to NEOMED’s successful application to the federal Centers of Excellence in Commercialization and Research (CECR) program competition. Dr. Max Fehlmann, President and CEO of NEOMED, commented, “The CECR program funding will not only provide us the money to increase the number of projects in the short and long term that can benefit from NEOMED's expertise in drug development, but it will also allow us to attract more financing from the private sector and, through this leverage, sustain our operations.” Dr. Fehlmann added that NEOMED plans to support almost 30 projects over five years and hopes to help bring future medicines into the market.
Philippe Walker, CSO at NEOMED, emphasized the importance of academic research in drug discovery. “Academia plays a key role in the identification of molecular targets on which drugs act. NEOMED offers industry expertise in the discovery and development of drugs, as well as funding capacity and a center (the NEOMED Institute) to transform academic discoveries into therapeutically beneficial innovations. As a non-profit organization, its aim is to establish commercialization agreements on advanced projects with development partners, and to reinvest the profits of these agreements into the public-private NEOMED fund.”
The institute is also instrumental in maintaining high-quality jobs in Quebec, says Jacques Daoust, the Canadian Minister of Economy, Innovation, and Exports. Earlier this year NEOMED celebrated the opening of more than 145 jobs in less than two years of its existence. At the Montreal InVivo Annual General Meeting last May, NEOMED also reported that it had engaged 22 resident companies in a range of areas in drug discovery and development.