Boehringer Ingelheim, GWT and the TU Dresden sign diabetes research collaboration

Boehringer Ingelheim, GWT and the Department of Medicine of the TU Dresden have signed a research collaboration agreement to develop new insights into the causes of diabetes and the link between excessive blood glucose, the hallmark of diabetes, and the serious complications of the disease that can affect many organ functions.

As partners, Boehringer Ingelheim, GWT and the TU Dresden will work together to enhance the knowledge of the disease to ultimately enable the discovery and development of innovative therapies that will treat these diseases more effectively. With this five-year industry-academia collaboration, Boehringer Ingelheim will further strengthen its efforts to translate basic scientific findings into more effective treatments of human diseases.

The partners have initially defined six research projects bridging between preclinical findings in the laboratory or from investigational treatments, to the corresponding clinical situation with patients. The projects range from the exploration of causes for the destruction of insulin-producing beta cells to the cells and molecules triggering diabetic complications in organs such as the eye (diabetic retinopathy), which can lead to blindness, kidney (nephropathy), nerves (neuropathy) or skin (ulcerations). Results from these studies may help to design new medicines for clinical testing, or to better understand how drug candidates can be tested in clinical trials with biomarkers, and ultimately used in an optimal way for those patients most likely to show clinical benefit.

“We are very pleased to collaborate in this important field of medical need with the distinguished scientists of the TU Dresden”, says Professor Wolfgang Rettig, the Senior Vice President of Research at Boehringer Ingelheim. “This research partnership builds upon the excellent, shared experience gained from our earlier collaboration with the TU Dresden.”

“Our academic industry partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim and the TU Dresden is ideally suited to move forward the translational process from bench to bedside”, says Professor Stefan Bornstein, Director of the Medical Clinic and Policlinic III of the University Clinic Carl Gustav Carus Dresden.