Not-for-Profit to Create an Open-Access Genomic Data Platform for Drug Discovery

SEATTLE–Sage Bionetworks, a not-for-profit organization established to develop an open-access genomic platform for use in drug discovery, announced a major founding donation today from Quintiles, the only fully integrated biopharmaceutical services company offering clinical, commercial, consulting and capital solutions worldwide.

The Quintiles donation is a major facet of Sage’s development efforts and will enable core research initiatives and development of the innovative Sage Commons platform.

Sage Bionetworks’ initial work will include generating integrated databases, creating tools for building and mining disease models and establishing governance rules for sharing, accessing and contributing to the data platform, all in the public domain.

The driver behind Sage’s work is the concept that human diseases could be cured more quickly and efficiently if academic and commercial researchers were able to access and integrate all available data. Mining these data should enable researchers to identify new drug targets relevant to disease biology.

The Sage concept springs from work begun at Rosetta Inpharmatics, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc. As part of its efforts, Sage Bionetworks will be making previously proprietary genetics data and tools from Merck & Co. accessible to interested parties with no proprietary strings attached. Assembled over the past five-to-seven years, the Merck information represents one of the world’s most coherent set of genomic data tied with clinical trial outcomes.

“I would like to thank Quintiles’ leadership team both for its generous financial support of Sage, and for their interest in, and commitment to, our goal of providing open access to genomic data,” said Sage Bionetworks President and CEO Stephen H. Friend, MD, PhD.

“There is a critical need to provide this access because genomic data has the potential to move the discovery side of the pharmaceutical industry away from the traditional competitive model toward consortium-style, pre-competitive collaborations,” Dr. Friend explained.

As the world’s leading biopharmaceutical services company, Quintiles seeks to advance the evolution of pharmaceutical discovery. “Quintiles is pleased to make this donation to Sage Bionetworks because we believe the organization’s work will ultimately enhance our understanding of the biology that is integral to drug discovery and development, paving the way toward safer and more effective treatments for all diseases,” said Dr. Oren Cohen, Quintiles Chief Medical and Scientific Officer.

“While this is a donation on our part, we also see it as an investment in the future of biopharmaceutical development, as Quintiles seeks to work with customers as an ally during a period of intense change for the industry.”

About Sage Bionetworks

Sage Bionetworks is a not-for-profit medical research organization established in 2009 to revolutionize how researchers approach the complexity of human biological information and the treatment of disease. Sage’s objectives include building and supporting an open access platform for building innovative new dynamic disease models to interconnect scientists as contributors to evolving, integrated networks of biological data. For more information please visit www.sagebase.org.

About Quintiles

Quintiles is the only fully integrated biopharmaceutical services company offering clinical, commercial, consulting and capital solutions worldwide. The Quintiles network of 23,000 engaged professionals in more than 50 countries around the globe works with an unwavering commitment to patients, safety and ethics. Quintiles helps biopharmaceutical companies navigate risk and seize opportunities in an environment where change is constant. For more information please visit www.quintiles.com.