GSK, J&J back Index’s new $200M fund for early-stage deals

Posted under Blog, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, GlaxoSmithKline, Index Ventures, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Moncef Slaoui, Pharmaceuticals, Startups, Universities, Videos by John Carroll

GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson are teaming up with Index Ventures to launch a $200 million fund devoted exclusively to backing early-stage biotechs. And while its primary focus will be in Europe, the venture group intends to invest in biotechs throughout the U.S. as well.

Index takes what it calls an "asset centric" approach to investing, looking for developers with just one or two products--a classic feature of most start-ups. And some heavy hitters from GSK ($GSK) and J&J ($JNJ) will sit on the scientific advisory board of the new fund, giving a few early-stage companies a chance to mix with some top execs from companies they'll be hoping to partner with at some point. From GSK, R&D chief Moncef Slaoui (photo) and Paul-Peter Tak, head of GSK's immunoinflammation therapy area unit, will join Janssen's Paul Stoffels and Bill Hait, global head of R&D. They'll confer with Index Ventures' Francesco De Rubertis, Kevin Johnson, Michele Ollier, Roman Fleck, and Remy Luthringer.

"With its unique platform of entrepreneurs behind the execution of the 'asset centric' investing model, we believe Index is well positioned to create an exciting pipeline of drug candidates," said Slaoui in a statement.

"We believe that supporting and nurturing start-ups and encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation will be good for the entire industry," added Stoffels. "Partnerships like this one with Index Ventures and its 'asset centric' platform will enable us to enhance the probability of identifying early stage technologies in disease areas of high unmet need." 

- here's the press release

GSK studies Chinese remedies to discover new drugs

Posted under Blog, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, GSK, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Moncef Slaoui, Pharmaceuticals, Startups, Universities, Videos by Ryan McBride

Amid GlaxoSmithKline's ($GSK) major push to expand in China, the London-based drugmaker has located a new R&D unit in that country that will investigate traditional Chinese medicines. The move is part of an effort to discover new chemical entities for treating diseases, British newspaper The Telegraph reported Sunday. Last week GSK R&D honcho Moncef Slaoui shared the plans with FierceBiotech in an interview about the drugmaker's strategy for discovering and developing new products.  FierceBiotech's Slaoui interview | The Telegraph report

GSK’s Slaoui opts for more flexible approach in DPU change-up

Posted under Blog, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, GlaxoSmithKline, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Moncef Slaoui, Pharmaceuticals, Startups, Universities, Videos by John Carroll

Now that GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) has hit the three-year mark on its closely watched experiment with Drug Performance Units, R&D Chairman Moncef Slaoui (pictured) tells FierceBiotech the pharma giant has adopted a more flexible approach to reviewing their progress. Those DPUs--which will now include a special unit focused on traditional Chinese medicine--are given milestones and timelines tailored to the work they have on hand. And while the jury may still be out on the ultimate success of the DPUs, Slaoui says he has no doubt  the gamble has paid off handsomely with a passionate and energetic group of development teams that have completely transformed the R&D culture at GSK.

GSK has tended to keep its DPU cards close to its vest for competitive reasons. In an interview with FierceBiotech, however, Slaoui noted two additions to the DPU organization. One new unit has been inspired by a young scientist with a "brilliant idea" regarding hemoglobin biology. Another is in the area of traditional Chinese medicine.

"We have a strong presence now in China," says Slaoui, who's eager to put traditional remedies to the test of modern drug development and clinical efficacy standards. Once GSK starts that, he adds, the pharma company has the opportunity to discover "new molecular entities with significant efficacy."

Slaoui also reveals there's been a steady turnover of DPUs over the past three years. Before the company announced this week it will shutter three of the units and add four more, GSK had already launched 8 units and closed 6.

Rolling out the whole DPU process had to be done at once, he says, but he counts the general three-year game plan as one of his biggest mistakes.

"A synchronized review of the whole pipeline at once is more disruptive as need be," says Slaoui. "Now we have defined milestones for new reviews," which can be 18 months out, or 56 months or whatever is right. Says Slaoui: "Spreading through time, that's a big learning."

And GSK will add new DPUs as needed. "If we see that something is exciting and new, we're not going to wait."

Slaoui says his other big mistake was hesitating on the decision to shut down GSK's work on neuroscience for psychiatric conditions. "We hesitated," he says, when GSK would have been better to have made the tough decision at that point, rather than wait another 18 months.

Demonstrating clinical efficacy of these drugs is incredibly tricky, he says. A drug development team can run a Phase IIb study and get one result, and then come up with a completely different result in another trial. "There's no way to understand why."

Patient-reported outcomes in the neuroscience field can vary dramatically and the biology is complex, making it a "hugely risky" field. Not that he's given up on it. Slaoui says he's been encouraging the NIH to support more academic work in the field, and he sees a lot of potential for experts to work together on "precompetitive" projects.

While failure can certainly become apparent inside three years, success in drug discovery and development takes significantly longer, says Slaoui. But there's no question in his mind that the "culture has absolutely been transformed."

When he arrived at GSK, investigators were largely disengaged, he explains. There "was not a passionate ownership of the project early in discovery." Instead of excitement and entrepreneurship, he found a "matter-of-factly turning of the machine."

Now, he says, DPU members from the top to the bottom are "absolutely passionate about their pipeline. They can identify their input, their partnership, hold themselves accountable and hold each other accountable. The energy is absolutely palpable. You feel it every minute."

Personal accountability also extends to new partnerships, says Slaoui. The units can make a decision about working on a new method of their own or partnering with another developer. They share in the budgeted cost of the partnership, as well as the fate of the technology. And that's enhanced the quality of the internal assessment of a partnership, he adds, especially when you consider that making the right choice can determine the "life or death" of a DPU.

Special Report: Moncef Slaoui - The 25 most influential people in biopharma today

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Moncef Slaoui – The 25 most influential people in biopharma today

Posted under Andrew Witty, Blog, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, GlaxoSmithKline, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Moncef Slaoui, Patrick Vallance, Pharmaceuticals, Startups, Universities, Videos by Mark Hollmer

The R&D radical

Moncef Slaoui
Chairman, research and development
GlaxoSmithKline

GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) is pursuing arguably the most radical reinvention of all the Big Pharmas of how it discovers and develops new drugs. And Moncef Slaoui, the company's chairman of research and development since June 2006, has played an influential role in that transformation as one of its major architects.

Rather than outsource R&D outright, Slaoui, a molecular biologist and immunologist by training, CEO Andrew Witty and Patrick Vallance turned to biotechnology startups for some inspiration. They reorganized the company's research organization into 38 separate, small units of scientists that must defend their progress and seek continued funding every three years after a review.

The ideas Slaoui and his team are implementing are unprecedented in Big Pharma, and the industry is watching closely. Everyone wants to know whether small research groups in a big organization are more nimble and generate more efficient, internal R&D. Success could also reshape how much GSK and its peers conduct in-house R&D, and what is partnered off to smaller, nimble biotechs and academic researchers. Nothing more than the future of how drug development is conducted is at stake here.

Failure for GSK's Discovery Performance Units means they may be disbanded, and the resources will be shifted to new or other drug development efforts. Demotions or declining company stature is also possible without results. But the research units now get lots more financial attention, at least as first. While overall funding for discovery spending at GSK is down, far more of the remaining cash that's left is devoted to development work.

"The four key principles that underpin everything we have done in R&D for the past 5 years are: focus on the best science, re-personalize R&D, externalize R&D and focus on return on investment," Slaoui explained to the WSJ in October about the program.

Has it worked? Some GSK investigators told Bloomberg that the program has slashed the amount of time taken to commit to a development program. Research teams also share resources. Another told The Times that the review questions were harsh, but helpful. But the jury is still out. Given the slow pace of development overall, this is one experiment that probably has much further to run than most analysts realize.