Rivals Help Fund Regeneron’s Gene-Sequencing Effort

Drugmakers including Pfizer, Biogen and AbbVie will get advance access to genetic database aimed at bolstering research

By Joseph Walker of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies are pooling resources to fund an ambitious genetic and medical database aimed at bolstering the search for new drugs.

AbbVie Inc., ABBV -1.01% Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc., AstraZeneca AZN 2.16% PLC, Biogen Inc. BIIB -0.63% and Pfizer Inc. PFE -0.60% will pay $10 million each to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., REGN 0.60% which began the project last year in partnership with the U.K. Biobank, a nonprofit that has collected DNA samples and health records from half a million people in the U.K., and drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline GSK -1.30% PLC.

The new funding will help Regeneron complete the database by the end of next year, the companies said Monday. In exchange, the five companies will have exclusive access to the data for six to 12 months before it is made public for all researchers to use, a Regeneron spokeswoman said.

Regeneron, based in Tarrytown, N.Y., is responsible for sequencing the genes of all 500,000 people, and originally planned to have the work completed by 2022.

By combining a large volume of genetic data with medical records, including imaging scans of the brain and other organs, the database will better enable researchers to search for disease-causing genes and develop drugs that attack the disease, George D. Yancopoulos, Regeneron’s president and chief scientific officer, said in an interview. In addition, by better understanding the genetic causes of disease, companies will be able to better predict whether their drugs will work in clinical trials and improve their research and development productivity, he said.

“This is an incredible treasure trove, and that’s why this deserved to go out there to other companies and the public so that everybody can take advantage of it,” Dr. Yancopoulos said. “This is going to be a great contribution to all mankind, that all of us will be using for years to come.”

When the project was first announced last year, the U.K. Biobank said it expected the cost of sequencing genes for all 500,000 patients to be about $150 million.

GlaxoSmithKline declined to participate in the second phase of the research project, Regeneron said. A GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman said the company is instead pursuing a project to sequence the genomes, or entire set of DNA, for the 500,000 patients in the U.K. Biobank. Glaxo said in December that it would invest £40 million ($54.3 million) in the project and other research initiatives, but hasn’t said when it expects to complete it."