Indiana University Research Institute Establishes Consortium For Medical Collaboration

The Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI), which is based out of the Indiana University School of Medicine, announced that it has established the Strategic Pharma-Academic Research Consortium for Translational Medicine, or SPARC. This consortium was created in order to help promote and guide new collaborations and innovations throughout the biopharmaceutical industry as well as academic research centers, with a focus on autoimmune disease research.

The initial members of SPARC include Indiana University’s CTSI as well as Eli Lilly and Co., and Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Several other universities with academic medical centers will also be joining the consortium, including Ohio State University, Northwestern University, and Washington University in St. Louis, all of which have clinical and translational science programs at their institution.

Anantha Shekhar, MD, PhD, and director of Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute and associate VP for university clinical affairs, commented on the establishment of the consortium. “SPARC will provide a platform for research projects that builds upon the unique strengths of academia and industry,” he said. “This new organization will combine the best aspects of both groups, in both basic discovery and compound development, to unlock a new model for innovation.”

In addition to research on autoimmune disease projects, the consortium is looking into other potential projects, including identifying target mechanisms for new medicines as well as using genetics to determine more effective, personalized treatments for existing medicines.

Andrew Dahlem, PhD and VP of operations for Lilly Research Laboratories with Eli Lilly, said that the partnership between pharmaceutical companies and academic research centers was an important one. “Academic collaborations have become an increasingly important component of the pharmaceutical industry’s overall innovation strategy,” he said. “We are pleased to be partnering on SPARC, which envisions a unique approach to this consortium, focused on creating the ability to identify, fund and implement research projects proposed by scientific teams that span multiple institutions, each with distinct capabilities and strengths.”