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Public Private Partnerships

Our centre has worked to develop new treatments to combat diseases of the developing world since it was established in 2001.  From the start of this initiative, we have worked closely in public-private partnerships, with groups including the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance). There are more than 100 scientists working at the centre, and many of these posts are partly funded by our partners.

Despite this level of collaboration, we believe that research into diseases that disproportionately affect the developing world is still too fragmented. To stimulate further research in this area, we are opening up our facility at Tres Cantos to new ways of working, known as “open innovation”. Our vision is for the Tres Cantos facility to become a global centre of excellence that stimulates research and collaboration.

We want to form new collaborations and bring new partners to the facility. We seek shared investment and participation from governments, NGOs, businesses and other groups.

Organising our public private partnership programmes

Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) is one of our key alliance partners. Our relationship started in 2000 with an agreement with MMV, Bristol University and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. In 2003 GSK and MMV signed a new agreement for the development of a ‘mini portfolio’ of research projects .

This agreement is unusual but beneficial in that there is a commitment to work on a portfolio of projects that run in parallel but are jointly managed very flexibly by GSK and MMV. The same portfolio approach was used when we set up our alliance with TB Alliance in 2004 to tackle tuberculosis. Now a mini-portfolio of four programmes aims to address issues such as shortening TB therapy and tackling multi-drug resistance.

In 2008 we announced a third alliance, initially for two years, with Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative. Our research funded by this alliance targets certain neglected tropical diseases which disproportionately affect the developing world, including visceral leishmaniasis (kala azar), human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) and Chagas disease.