India’s Jubilant Organosys has announced two separate alliances in the past month with US academic partners: a joint venture with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Research Foundation and the Southern Research Institute, and a partnership with Duke University

Under the first, Jubilant, UAB and Southern Research will develop biological targets discovered by their researchers through pre-clinical to Phase II trials, then license them out to the pharmaceuticals industry. This will focus particularly on cancer, metabolic disease and infectious diseases, where UAB and SRI are both strong.

UAB receives over €265 million/year in National Institutes of Health funding, making it one of the top 25 institutes in terms of funding that the research alliance aims to tap. Its key scientific strength lies in identifying proteins that contribute to diseases.

Southern Research, meanwhile, is a non-profit scientific research organisation that is also based in Birmingham and is active in many different fields. It has been involved in developing seven marketed cancer drugs and in five more that are currently in clinical development.

Meanwhile, Jubilant’s Jubilant Biosys subsidiary, which offers drug discovery and development services to the drugs industry, and Duke announced their ‘multi-faceted partnership’ World Economic Forum’s India Economic Summit in Delhi in mid-November. Full agreement is expected within Q1 2010.

The stated aim is to speed the translation of discoveries by Duke University School of Medicine scientists into clinical therapies by applying Jubilant’s drug development capabilities, plus funding. The two will work together for five years with the objective of developing a portfolio of four to five technologies.

Both parties intend to monetise successful technologies by licensing or partnering as appropriate and receive milestones and royalties. Any royalties paid to Duke would be used to support ongoing discovery research and further investments in translational technologies.

They will also work together on two new biomarker studies in Kolkata. One will look at several unspecified chronic diseases common in India and seek to monitor their spread as the population urbanises. The second will examine in Indians with heart disease and diabetes metabolomic biomarker signatures that are associated with insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease in whites.

Bangalore-based Jubilant Biosys has also just announced a five-year extension and expansion of its initial discovery research collaboration with Eli Lilly. This began in 2005 and has already “delivered multiple discovery milestones and preclinical candidates”.

Under the terms of the new agreement Jubilant will receive research funding and success-based discovery and development milestones. The two companies also established a joint venture in India called Vanthys Pharmaceuticals for early stage drug development in 2008.