Translational notes
At Harvard, Glimcher had multiple interactions with biopharma,
including a three-year collaboration with Merck & Co. Inc. that finished
late last year. She also is the longest serving director on the board of
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
A conversation with
Laurie Glimcher
By Joanne Kotz, Senior Editor
As Laurie Glimcher was preparing to take over as dean of Weill Cornell
Medical College in New York City, SciBX caught up with her to discuss
her views on research priorities for academic medical centers, the
role of industry–university partnerships in promoting translational
research and the potential of New York City to emerge as a biopharma
hub. According to Glimcher, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to
public-private partnerships, and a combination of models may be most
effective.
Previously, Glimcher was a professor at Harvard Medical School and
the Harvard School of Public Health and a practicing rheumatologist
at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her research interests span
immunology, skeletal biology and neurodegenerative diseases.
SciBX: As you take over as dean of Weill Cornell, how do you plan to
boost the translational profile of the college?
Laurie Glimcher: One critical
“Turning basic research
piece will be increasing the
advances into therapies
school’s academic strength
is an important mission of
through a planned expansion to
academic medical centers
double research capacity so that
that receive public funding,
Weill Cornell joins the ranks of
and I believe this can
the leading academic medical
sometimes most effectively be
centers in the country. The
accomplished in partnership
recruitment of topflight junior
and senior scientists who can
with biotech and pharma.”
attract funding and can nucleate
—Laurie Glimcher,
new areas of research is key, as is
Weill Cornell Medical College
the nurturing of the outstanding
faculty already at Weill Cornell.
Another piece will be increasing the center’s interactions with the
private sector, which I think are essential for translational research.
Table 1. Putting a spin (out) on New York City medical centers. Companies focusing on therapeutics, diagnostics or medical devices that
were founded from 2009–2011 based on technology licensed from the indicated academic institution. Data were provided by the respective
technology transfer offices.
Institution
Spinout
Location
Technology in-licensed
Licensing date
New York, N.Y.
Tissue removal bag for laparoscopic surgery
2011
New York, N.Y.
Permeable small molecules that assemble into larger
molecules inside cells
2009
Ezra Pharmaceuticals Inc.
New York, N.Y.
Method to treat or prevent retinal disorders with
repurposed drugs
2010
MedimageMetric LLC
New York, N.Y.
MRI method for measuring aspects of heart function
2010
Novita Pharmaceuticals Inc.
New York, N.Y.
Cancer metastasis target
2010
Reparo Therapy Inc.
New York, N.Y.
Target for promoting DNA repair to treat or prevent
cancers
2009
SaltCheck Inc.
Boston, Mass.
Rapid test for monitoring salt intake
2010
Constellation Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Cambridge, Mass.
Epigenetic therapeutic targets
2009
ContraFect Corp.
Yonkers, N.Y.
Lysin enzymes against various bacteria
2010
Jupiter, Fla.
Cell type–specific gene expression for target
identification
2009
New York, N.Y.
Method for synthesizing vaccine adjuvants
2011
Berwyn, Pa.
Wilms tumor 1 (WT1) peptide vaccines for the
treatment of leukemia
2011
Scottsdale, Ariz.
Anti-ceramide antibody for GI syndrome and other
inflammatory conditions
2011
New York, N.Y.
Heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) inhibitors for cancer
treatment
2011
Weill Cornell Medical College
Boa-Bag LLC
Coferon Inc.
The Rockefeller University
Envoy Therapeutics Inc.
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Adjuvance Technologies Inc.
Formula Pharmaceuticals Inc.
PxRadia Inc.
Samus Therapeutics LLC
SciBX: Science–Business eXchange
Copyright © 2012 Nature Publishing Group
1
translational notes
analysis
Turning basic research advances into therapies is an important mission
of academic medical centers that receive public funding, and I believe
this can sometimes most effectively be accomplished in partnership with
biotech and pharma.
SciBX: In 2008, the Harvard Office of Technology Development and
Merck signed a three-year osteoporosis deal in which Merck sponsored
research in your laboratory. According to Don Nicholson, VP and head
of worldwide discovery in the respiratory and immunology franchise at
Merck, from the company’s perspective “the collaboration went very well
and is a prototype for collaborations that [Merck] plans on disclosing
over the coming year.”
How do you think your close ties to the biopharma industry, and
in particular your previous collaboration with Merck, will inform your
efforts to boost biotech and pharma interactions at Weill Cornell?
LG: My collaboration with Merck provided a great model for a
productive academic-pharma interaction. The collaboration started
as a result of my laboratory’s serendipitous discovery that mice lacking
schnurri-3 had increased adult bone mass.1 While current therapies
for osteoporosis primarily target bone-resorbing osteoclasts and thus
only prevent further bone loss, schnurri-3 regulates the activity of
bone-building osteoblasts, providing a potentially more effective
therapeutic option.
The collaboration with Merck was truly interactive, with both
parties making contributions. We helped them design screening
assays based on schnurri-3 to identify inhibitory small molecules.
They generated genetic mutant strains of mice for us, and we worked
together with them to uncover the upstream and downstream players
in the schnurri-3 pathway through genomic and proteomic approaches.
We were true partners, with daily and weekly discussions and monthly
face-to-face meetings.
The collaboration allowed my lab to move robustly into skeletal
biology, which was a new field for us. My lab is now continuing to look
for regulators of osteoblast and osteoclast activity.
[Editor’s note: Nicholson told SciBX that the collaboration resulted in the
identification of “multiple appealing and tractable targets upstream” and
downstream of schnurri-3, although he noted that these targets are not
being pursued further at the company due to a strategic refocus.]
SciBX: What other innovative models do you see for academia–
biopharma interactions?
LG: One promising approach is getting compounds that have passed
Phase I, but not gone on to FDA approval because of failed efficacy, into
the hands of academic researchers. Establishing partnerships for making
compounds from discontinued clinical programs available to researchers
at selected academic institutions for testing in other assay systems for
diseases other than the original target is an excellent strategy.
These are compounds that have proven to be safe, even if they were
not effective in the initial indication in which they were tested. Diseases
are not isolated entities; for instance, diabetes increases the risk of cancer
and obesity is linked to inflammation. Thus, there is a lot of potential in
testing these clinical compounds in the wide variety of disease models
that are available in academic labs.
SciBX: Science–Business eXchange
SciBX: In the case of Weill Cornell, do you think that industry
collaborations with individual researchers or broader, more institutionoriented ones will be most effective?
LG: I am really open to anything that works. I don’t have any preconceived
notions about how public-private partnerships have to be structured, as
long as they are conducted in a way that is fully transparent.
SciBX: Going back to the other piece of the translational puzzle, are
there disease areas that you think should be a high priority for academic
medical centers and that you intend to focus on as you expand basic
research at Weill Cornell?
LG: One area would be neurodegenerative diseases, whose enormous
costs will take down our healthcare system if we cannot come up with
viable therapeutics. Pharmas are proceeding cautiously and in some cases
rethinking their approach. As a result, there is a need and opportunity for
academic medical centers to contribute novel mechanistic insights and
early therapeutic leads. Weill Cornell already has established the new
Helen & Robert Appel Institute for Alzheimer’s Research, which is being
led by Dr. Steven Paul, originally from [Eli Lilly and Co.], and I want to
continue to make new hires in this area.
Cancer is another area where there is a clear unmet medical need
and where it is important for academic medical centers, including Weill
Cornell, to have a strong presence. One exciting area where academic
medical centers are well positioned is making personalized medicine a
reality through state-of-the-art genomic approaches. Academic medical
centers are also the engines of discovery in identifying fruitful new
targets for further exploration.
Finally, metabolic diseases, within which I am including diabetes,
obesity, cardiovascular disease, dyslipidemias and osteoporosis, are a
huge societal problem. Metabolic diseases have also been challenging for
pharma, and I believe important basic and translational advances can be
made at an academic medical center, such as discovering novel signaling
pathways that modulate genetic factors in these diseases.
SciBX: How strongly do you think New York City is positioned to become
the next biopharma hub?
LG: Very strongly. I believe that New York City has the potential to
be a major player in this arena, and this is something that I am very
excited about.
Of course, we at Weill Cornell are enormously excited at the recent
announcement that our parent university in Ithaca has been chosen
as the winner of the New York Tech Campus initiative put forward by
Mayor Bloomberg. Establishing a new high-tech graduate school in
science, engineering and computational biology on Roosevelt Island
with a strong entrepreneurial bent will be transformative for New York
City.
SciBX: Weill Cornell, The Rockefeller University and Memorial SloanKettering Cancer Center have an established tri-institutional alliance,
and over the last three years faculty at these three institutions have
collectively founded 14 biotech companies in the biopharma space, over
half of which are based in New York City (see Table 1, “Putting a spin
Copyright © 2012 Nature Publishing Group
2
translational notes
analysis
(out) on New York City medical centers”). How do you see these three
institutions playing a role in promoting biopharma in New York City?
Kotz, J. SciBX 5(2); doi:10.1038/scibx.2012.31
Published online Jan. 12, 2012
LG: One important foundation for building a biopharma presence in New
York City will be increasing the interactions of the academic biomedical
community. Weill Cornell, Rockefeller and Memorial Sloan-Kettering
in fact are located literally down the street from each other, closer even
than some of the buildings and affiliated hospitals at Harvard Medical
School. With Marc Tessier-Lavigne [president of Rockefeller University]
and Craig Thompson [president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering], we now
have new leadership at all three of these institutions, and I am committed
to strengthening the tri-institutional program.
REFERENCES
SciBX: Thank you very much for your time.
SciBX: Science–Business eXchange
1. Jones, D.C. et al. Science 312, 1223–1227 (2006)
COMPANIES AND INSTITUTIONS MENTIONED
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Mass.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE:BMY), New York, N.Y.
Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE:LLY), Indianapolis, Ind.
Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.
Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Mass.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, N.Y.
Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE:MRK), Whitehouse Station, N.J.
The Rockefeller University, New York, N.Y.
Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, N.Y.
Copyright © 2012 Nature Publishing Group
3