AstraZeneca and MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Launch Joint Research Fund

AstraZeneca will collaborate with the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB) to fund a range of pre-clinical research projects aimed at better understanding the biology of disease. Projects supported by the fund will involve scientists from the two organizations working side by side, either within the MRC LMB at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, the site of the company’s future R&D center and corporate headquarters, or in AstraZeneca and MedImmune research facilities. As part of the planned collaboration, AstraZeneca would contribute up to approximately $10 million and MRC LMB up to approximately $5 million over a period of five years. Decisions on which projects will receive support from the fund will be made jointly by MRC LMB and AstraZeneca.

Projects supported by the fund would be pre-competitive and would not be specifically targeted towards drug development. Instead they would feed into the existing research and development activities of the two organizations, with the results published in peer reviewed journals.