Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A. announced that it has entered into a three-year partnership with two academic centers to further inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) research and patient care. The centers, The University of Chicago and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, will advance research into IBD, and Takeda will translate scientific findings into new treatments and patient-focused support. The initiatives will focus on IBD and immunology (Mount Sinai), and IBD and digital innovation (University of Chicago).
“Creating strong partnerships with the potential to discover game changing technologies and health solutions is a key priority for our company,” Charlie Baum, MD, Takeda’s vice president and head of U.S. Medical and Scientific Affairs, said in a press release. “This research assures continued scientific focus and exploration to help people affected by IBD, a chronic, challenging to treat disease that impacts as many as 1.6 million Americans and 5 million people globally.”
Mount Sinai’s work into immunology will focus on investigational approaches to lymphocytic homing to the colon and the effect of the microbiome on homing to the colon, and exploring therapeutic cell-based procedures to suppress intestinal inflammation.
“A partnership between Takeda and Mount Sinai could lead to identifying novel homing markers to the large bowel and define innovative therapeutic targets in patients with IBD,” said Jean-Frédéric Colombel, MD, the director of the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust IBD Center at the Icahn School of Medicine.
The University of Chicago will concentrate on developing a patient physician digital platform that monitors disease status in real time and communicates environmental, molecular, genetic and microbiome factors for each patient, creating a system for identifying personalized IBD therapies.
“We are very grateful for Takeda’s vision and support in accelerating novel research of and care for people suffering from IBD,” said David T. Rubin, MD, the Joseph B. Kirsner professor of Medicine, and chief of the Section of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at the University of Chicago Medicine.
The collaboration is intended to advance understanding of novel therapies and treatment strategies through the sharing of information and resources, including lab techniques, reagents, and cell lines. It will also address gaps in research and data collection, and enable collaborative work on clinical and health outcome study projects.
“Takeda is dedicated to being a catalyst for scientific discovery that can profoundly advance patient care,” said Ramona Sequeira, president of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. “We are enthusiastic to partner with these tremendous academic centers. We anticipate that these collaborative initiatives will yield meaningful, ground-breaking research with the potential to improve patient outcomes in IBD.”