Pfizer in $14M collaboration with universities

Global drugs giant Pfizer has entered into a collaboration agreement with four major research universities - the University of California, Santa Barbara; Caltech; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and University of Massachusetts - and Entelos, a physiological modeling company, to re-examine the regulatory mechanisms of human energy metabolism. Pfizer is funding the three-year, $14.0 million Insulin Resistance Pathway project to look at insulin signaling in adipose (fat) cells to increase understanding of diabetes and obesity, inextricably-linked conditions that affect 7% of the US population.

While diabetes has been the subject of intense study in the academic community and pharmaceutical industry for nearly 50 years, the diabetes and obesity medicines that have reached the market do not meet the needs of many patients, says Pfizer, noting that nearly 60% of patients do not respond adequately to currently-available drug therapies.

According to Preston Hensley, who will oversee the IRP for Pfizer, knowledge uncovered in the project will be applied to develop new drugs for the treatment of diabetes.