AstraZeneca has entered into a cancer collaboration with Redx Pharma, which operates from the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker’s former R&D headquarters at Alderley Park.

The partners will discover and develop new molecules targeting a genetic driver of tumour growth and survival and the collaboration will involve Redx scientists working with AstraZeneca’s oncology innovative medicines group (IMED). Cashwise, Redx will receive an upfront payment and is eligible for “significant development and commercial milestones, as well as tiered royalties”.

Financial details have not been disclosed but Redx chief executive Neil Murray told the Liverpool Echo that the deal is transformational for the firm, “the first one we have done with a blue-chip pharmaceutical company.” Susan Galbraith, head of the oncology IMED at AstraZeneca, said the partnership is based on the group’s own early-stage research focused on the genetic drivers of cancer “and allows us to build on our combined drug discovery expertise”.

Redx was one of the first tenants at the BioHub at Alderley Park near Manchester, set up by AstraZeneca in May 2013 and sold to Manchester Science Parks this March as it moves its research HQ to Cambridge. The firms’ scientists will work together at Alderley Park, as well as at Redx’s Liverpool facility where the project will be based.
 
Dr Galbraith said the collaboration demonstrates “the open, collaborative environment that has been created at Alderley Park [and] also illustrates AstraZeneca’s continued commitment to supporting science in the UK”.