Skip to Content

Shelved Drugs Become a New Research Resource

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, which is the newest branch of the National Institutes of Health, is partnering with big pharma to give academic researchers access to more than 20 drugs that have passed some safety testing in humans but for some reason have been iced by the drug makers.

In a press release, the agency announced that Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Eli Lilly will make dozens of their compounds available to researchers who will be able to search for new uses for drugs.

NCATS will back the awkwardly named Discovering New Therapeutic Uses for Existing Molecules with $20 million in 2013. According to the release, the companies will provide researchers with the compounds and related data. The partnerships set up by the program will give academics rights to any intellectual property or publications that come from their work with the compounds while the drug makers will retain ownership of the drugs .

Keep Reading

Most Popular

This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI

The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models. 

The Biggest Questions: What is death?

New neuroscience is challenging our understanding of the dying process—bringing opportunities for the living.

Rogue superintelligence and merging with machines: Inside the mind of OpenAI’s chief scientist

An exclusive conversation with Ilya Sutskever on his fears for the future of AI and why they’ve made him change the focus of his life’s work.

How to fix the internet

If we want online discourse to improve, we need to move beyond the big platforms.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.