Dive Brief:
- As part of GlaxoSmithKline's recent streamlining, French biotech Oncodesign has acquired GSK's François Hyafil Research Centre, along with a team of around 57 drug discovery staff.
- GSK will continue to provide support for four years, with a total of €35 million ($40 million), to help with the retention of staff and the integration of the new site, which is part of the Paris Saclay science cluster, into Oncodesign's business.
- If all goes as expected, the agreement will be in place on or before December 1, 2016.
Dive Insight:
GlaxoSmithKline is clearing the decks to focus down on its core areas of respiratory disease, HIV and vaccines. The British pharma has been busy selling off its non-core assets, passing its anesthesia business and thrombosis portfolio to Aspen Therapeutics earlier this month and moving away from autoimmune disease and oncology last year.
It's also been tidying up its R&D sites. Due to a prior decision to focus on Upper Providence in Collegeville, PA and Stevenage, U.K., GSK needed to find a new home for a number of satellite sites, including the François Hyafil Research Centre in Dijon, France.
"I am delighted that, through this agreement, the skilled scientists based at the [François Hyafil Research Centre] site will have a secure future and can remain part of the science research community in France," commented Jean-Francois Brochard, General Manager GSK France.
Oncodesign has two strings to its bow — fee-for-service preclinical study design and evaluation of potential cancer therapeutics, as well as collaborative oncological drug and biomarker discovery in partnership with pharma and biotech companies.
The François Hyafil Research Centre moved to the current site in 2010, where the facilities include delivery of medicinal chemistry, biology, in vivo pharmacology, drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics. According to Philippe Genne, CEO and founder of Oncodesign, access to these capabilities will allow the company to boost both of these businesses.
Oncodesign has strategic partnerships already in place with a number of big pharma companies, including Ipsen, Bristol-Myers Squibb and UCB.