Edinburgh targets billion-dollar marketBy Steven Vass Deputy Business Editor
THE University of Edinburgh is to take part in a £9.3 million research scheme that aims to turn Scotland into a commercial powerhouse in a new field of therapy for cancers and other diseases.
The university, along with Mount Sinai hospital in Toronto, has been contracted by science technology developer ITI Life Sciences to research ways of reducing the longevity of cells affected by cancer, inflammation and infection.
ITI Life Sciences, which is part of Scottish Enterprise, believes that the research could produce patents and "drug candidates" around which lucrative Scottish companies could be built. The market, which the US researchers have been investing heavily in for several years, is seen as being potentially worth tens of billions of pounds.
Dr Eleanor Mitchell, managing director of ITI Life Sciences, said: "We believe that by ITI being involved in this early stage, we will be able to anchor the commercial activities in Scotland."
The research involves small proteins called ubiquitins, which live inside cells and have a role in determining their lifespan. Scientists believe it may be possible to use drugs to force ubiquitins to kill sick cells before they can spread.
The function of ubiquitins was the subject of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2004, awarded to leading scientists Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose for a research paper entitled The Kiss of Death. Mitchell said that ITI sees ubiquitins as having at least the potential of kinases, a variety of enzyme with a $16 billion (£10bn ) market that the Dundee life-sciences sector has been at the forefront of exploiting.
This was overseen by professor Sir Philip Cohen, a research professor at the University of Dundee who also sits on the ITI scientific advisory group.
"We and Sir Philip see even greater potential in the area of ubiquitins," said Mitchell.
She explained that the University of Edinburgh and Mount Sinai will concentrate on a specific chain of ubiquitin reactions called the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS), which takes place in the cellular development of cancers, infections and inflammations.
Edinburgh will focus on the first two pre-clinical stages of drug development, which are known as target identification and target validation, but will work with Mount Sinai on the final stage, which is hit/lead discovery.
ITI has also set up an advisory board with big industry hitters to help supervise the project.
Mitchell said: "It includes experience in oncology, from professor Karen Vousden director of the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, experience of ubiquitins, from Dr Frank Mercurio chief scientific officer of BioTheryx, San Diego. There is also experience of big pharma, through professor Manfred Auer a professor at the University of Edinburgh and former Novartis executive."
The whole process is expected to take a total of three to four years. It might then take another 10 years to get a drug to market, but it is much easier to attract private funding for the clinical stages.
Dr Magnus Nicholson, managing director of Stirling-based biotech company EctoPharma, which is producing an ubiquitin-based treatment for pancreatic cancer and was turned down for the ITI research project, said: "Although I am disappointed at not getting funding, I would say ubiquitins are a good area for ITI funding, which will be useful in future."
For several years the National Institute of Health in America has been investing heavily in ubiquitins. The most successful drug in the area to date is Velcade, used to treat a rare type of bone cancer called multiple myeloma.
ITI Life Sciences has a total of £50m committed to research and development programmes. Other areas include stem cell research and transgenic screening.
