Rochester, Md.-based Mayo Clinic has announced a partnership with leading pharmaceutical manufacturer Baxter and the biotech arm of Velocity Pharmaceutical Development, a bioscience development firm created by Presidio Partners. The partners will together create a new company called Vitesse Biologics, which will aim to move drugs for cancer, hematology and auto-immune illnesses to market in a shorter timeframe, according to the Post Bulletin.
In this new arrangement, Mayo will be responsible for conducting early stage clinical trials for patients benefiting from emerging treatments. This work will be planned by Mayo but managed by an investment firm and stocked by Baxter. All of the new products will be sold by Baxalta, a spinoff of Baxter that is soon to be a publicly traded company, according to the report.
Mayo will be involved in the vetting of potential new treatments before the study, some of which may be generated within Mayo research and some in response to its partners' acquisition of biotech products developed elsewhere. In exchange, Mayo will have the ability to offer emerging experimental therapies to patients, as well as a stake in the royalties brought in by the final product, according to the report.
After the vetting stage, Mayo will conduct work previously carried out by contract research organizations and competitors to academic medical centers. As the operator of the clinical trials, this move could place increased pressure on Mayo to satisfy the commercial goals of its new partners.
"In the past, the pharmaceutical industry and academic medical centers kind of worked independently," Greg Gores, MD, executive dean for research at Mayo said in a statement. "One had a commercial interest, and one had a scientific interest, but we all always realized they eventually had to work together to impact patient care. This just starts the process much earlier. We can accelerate it."