A new initiative aims to revitalise drug discovery for mental health conditions

A new initiative aims to revitalise drug discovery for mental health conditions

October 5, 2019 391

The Psychiatry Consortium’s first ‘challenge call’ encourages applicants from academic and other research organisations worldwide to apply for funding.

The consortium aims to provide up to £3 million in research funding over the next three years to support high-value drug discovery projects. Applicants can submit project proposals to the Psychiatry Consortium from 7 October with a closing date of 22 November.

The Psychiatry Consortium is a collaboration between medical charities, pharma and healthcare companies and is managed by the Medicines Discovery Catapult.  

Funding for mental health research remained flat between 2008 – 2017 despite an increasing need for better medicines to treat psychiatry conditions.

Now, thanks to recent scientific advances and better biological understandings, there is a renewed opportunity to advance research and development in psychiatry.

In particular, the Psychiatry Consortium is seeking innovative research projects that:

  1. Focus on novel molecular targets for mental health conditions including psychotic disorders, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, stress-related disorders, PTSD, OCD, autism spectrum disorders, as well as psychiatric symptoms associated with dementia and other cognitive disorders.
  2. Generate evidence that links molecular targets to human disease and evidence of target modulation having a therapeutic effect.
  3. Enable tools for target validation e.g. tool compounds, biomarkers, assays, and models.

Successful applicants will be given access to drug discovery expertise and capabilities, specialised partner CROs, commercial know-how, project management resources, and project funding.

Importantly, the Psychiatry Consortium will welcome proposals from early career researchers who may have had limited prior experience working with industry.

Alessandra Gaeta, syndicate programme director at Medicines Discovery Catapult, said: “We are delighted to be issuing the first call for project proposals to address the challenge of identifying and validating new drug targets for psychiatric diseases. The ambition of the Psychiatry Consortium for the next three years is to revitalise drug discovery in psychiatry disease by strengthening academic-industry collaboration. This is a key milestone on the journey to achieving that and enabling the much-needed drug pipeline of the future.”

 

Information here: here

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