FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 8, 1999
#99-08

NIEHS CONTACT:
Tom Hawkins
(919) 541-1402

08 Jun 1999: NIEHS and Astra Zeneca Co-operate on Arthritis Drug Research

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (http://www.niehs.nih.gov) and Astra Zeneca Pharmaceuticals (http://www.astrazeneca.com/) today announced a partnership aimed at utilizing recent NIEHS research to aid the discovery of new drugs to treat rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease and other painful inflammatory diseases.

In the partnership (formalized in a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (http://ott.od.nih.gov/cradas/model_agree.html) , or CRADA) the work of scientists at NIEHS in Research Triangle Park, N.C. (http://www.rtp.org/) , will be used by Astra Zeneca to aid the discovery of the new drugs.

A number of inflammatory diseases are characterized by the increased presence of a protein (http://www.cancer.gov/Templates/db_alpha.aspx?CdrID=46092) called tumor necrosis factor (http://www.cancer.gov/Templates/db_alpha.aspx?CdrID=45290) alpha (TNF) that helps fight infections but can also be overproduced, causing inflammation and disease.

NIEHS research identified a second protein, tristetraprolin or TTP, that puts the brakes on TNF and its ravages. Investigators at the NIEHS and their corporate partners now seek to develop new therapies for the inflammatory diseases by exploring the function of TTP, which a recent NIEHS study published in the journal Science (http://www.sciencemag.org/) showed inhibits the synthesis and release of TNF from macrophage defender cells and perhaps other cell types.

"This is exactly what these cooperative agreements are meant to do," Perry Blackshear, M.D., D.Phil. (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/clinical/program/admin_staff.cfm), NIEHS Director of Clinical Research, said. "We are taking fundamental knowledge about cell biology and, in partnership with scientists in the private sector, seeing how it can be applied to prevent or treat disease."

Dr. Blackshear pointed out that the agreement will not only help the non-profit basic research program at NIEHS, but that new drugs developed through this type of collaboration might benefit patients as well as the corporate partners.