The giant pharmaceutical company Pfizer already has partnerships with academic medical centers in San Francisco and New York City. Now they’re adding Boston. According to a press release, the company will house its Center for Therapeutic Innovation in the Longwood area and invest $100 million over five years to bring basic science discoveries to clinical applications.
The semi-autonomous center will be headed by a Pfizer scientist but draw postdocs from academic medical centers. A brochure describes that faculty from academic medical centers will be involved on a steering committee that helps decide projects and monitors conflicts of interest. Important to note in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision involving a Stanford biomedical researcher, Pfizer retains first right to license any clinical probes that come out of the research.