Big Pharma Struck Out. So NIH Is Giving IU, Purdue Millions to Seek New Alzheimer's Treatments

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine a five-year, $36 million grant to create a novel drug discovery center to seek new Alzheimer's treatments in partnership with Purdue University's Institute for Drug Discovery, reports the Indianapolis Star . This marks a shift in drug development focus, in the wake of the pharmaceutical industry's failure to create effective drugs. The hope is that researchers will share their discoveries with others in the field to accelerate the transition from laboratory research to clinical trials. "Through these centers, NIH will expand the use of open-science and open-source principles to de-risk novel drug targets with the goal of facilitating the development of new treatments for Alzheimer's," pledged NIH Director Francis S. Collins. Former Eli Lilly researcher Alan Palkowitz will head the IU center, and he said every setback fuels the drive to continue research. "Given the complexity of the disease and past results, we need to urgently explore new ideas," he stressed. Purdue Institute Director Zhong-Yin Zhang noted his team will offer drug discovery expertise, and the organization currently has 73 compounds in the pipeline. Palkowitz added that the IU center will share its findings with both academic and pharmaceutical industry players, and will try to team with a pharmaceutical company to convert any compound of interest into an effective medication.