Eisai is funding H3 in Cambridge, MA with $200 M over 10 years to develop new oncology drugs. The idea is to create an entrepreneurial start up with presumably a better chance for success than the plodding Big Pharma R&D groups that we see being reduced all around us.
Eisai, with Oncology Group H3 Biomedicine, Doubles Down on Boston.
The entrepreneurial unit will presumably have access to Eisai's drug discovery resources but will also enjoy more autonomous decision making power to allow it to be more agile. H3 believes one of its strengths are through relationships with Todd Golub and Stu Schreiber of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and who serve as scientific advisors. Schreiber is an expert at synthesizing drugs to home in on disease proteins, and Golub is an authority on the genetics of cancer.
H3 will hire a chief scientist for its Cambridge lab and expects to employ 40 scientists by April with plans to expand to 75 in the future. H3 scientists will be compensated based on their successes.
Posted by Bruce Lehr Feb 14th 2011.
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