Economic impact
Our contribution to the economy.
Economic impact of the Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre results from:
(1) utilisation of Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre-generated results and discoveries by other organisations and commercial entities around the world;
(2) direct commercialisation of patents and other intellectual-property rights secured by Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre researchers;
(3) “value-for-money” services provided by Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre researchers to its industrial/commercial partners.
A good example of the first category of impact is the breast cancer drug lapatinib (commercialised as Tykerb/Tyverb). Our clinical-research contributions were essential for worldwide marketing authorisation of lapatinib and lapatinib generated sales for the UK-based company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) of £227M in 2010, £231M in 2011, £239M in 2012, £207M in 2013 and £171M in 2014 (totalling over 1 billion pounds).
Recent examples of Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre discoveries (and accompanying intellectual property rights) that are being in process of commercialisation and are likely to have significant economic impact in the future include novel kinase inhibitors for cancer therapy (for example eCF506, a novel “first-in-class” inhibitor of Src, that in contrast to other Src inhibitors undergoing clinical trials, displays high selectivity towards Src tyrosine kinase without inhibiting many other kinases present in the cells and thus might result in better anti-cancer activity in some tumour types with less undesired side effects (UK Patent Application GB1508747.1)) and activation of anti-cancer drugs with palladium-activated compounds (our researchers harnessed non-toxic metallic palladium implants to modulate the pharmacological activity of small pro-drug molecules in a spatially-controlled manner which might result in more targeted anti-cancer drug delivery and less side-effects for the patients during therapy).
Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre (in particular the Cancer Discovery Unit since its creation in 2011) has also been performing contracted research and collaborative projects with a number of commercial entities including companies such as Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, Galapagos, Carrick Therapeutics, Mission Therapeutics, Radius Health and others. These types of activities not only provide fast “value-for-money” services for a number of aspiring companies that would like to benefit from our “know-how” and cutting-edge phenotypic-screening facilities (speeding up research & development phase of their projects and reducing their costs), but they also facilitate better-informed strategic decisions and early evaluation of most promising approaches, ultimately contributing to faster development of much needed improved cancer therapeutics.