GlaxoSmithKline expands research collaboration with Brazil's Fiocruz

The UK's largest pharmaceuticals company GlaxoSmithKline yesterday said that it had expanded its collaboration with Brazil's Oswald Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) to undertake new research to develop medicines to treat diseases which affect people living in the world's poorest countries.

Fiocruz and GlaxoSmithKline, have a long-standing relationship since 1985, to manufacture vaccines for public health priorities in Brazil, in the treatment of polio, haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), measles, mumps, rubella, rotavirus and most recently pneumococcal disease.

The research relationship also covers the development of research and transfer of manufacturing capabilities to Brazil.

This extension of the deal will enable scientists at Fiocruz and GSK's Tres Cantos facility in Spain to openly share new research in priority areas such as malaria, tuberculosis, chagas and leishmaniasis.

''Alliances like this one with Fiocruz, are critical to the progress and to the needs of patients," says Dr Nick Cammack, SVP and head of the Tres Cantos Medicines Development Campus. "The expertise and knowledge that the scientists at Fiocruz will bring will help drive our discovery and development efforts.''

The Tres Cantos Medicines Development Campus was set up in a bid to discover new medicines to address diseases of the developing world, which GSK created in .

The agreement will initially be focused on chagas and leishmaniasis because of Fiocruz's experience in these areas and also because of the unmet medical need for patients living with these diseases.