Research & Innovation

Biopharmaceutical company AbbVie, life-sciences startup Genomics Medicine Ireland Limited (GMI), and WuXi NextCODE, the global contract genomics organisation, launched a long-term strategic alliance on Monday to conduct population genomics research in Ireland aimed at advancing the discovery and development of novel therapeutic approaches to a range of serious diseases. The 15-year collaboration will focus on major chronic diseases within oncology, neuroscience and immunology that affect hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland and hundreds of millions worldwide.

The alliance will result in the sequencing of 45,000 genomes from volunteer participants across Ireland to seek novel insights into the biological processes that underlie complex disease. AbbVie will use the research database developed by GMI to identify new molecular approaches for therapeutic drug discovery and development as well as to develop companion diagnostics. The alliance builds on AbbVie’s substantial existing presence in Ireland, which includes more than 600 employees and investments of more than $130 million since 2013.

“Genomics is transforming the way we understand some of the world’s most devastating diseases and enabling the discovery of new approaches that have the potential to deliver much greater benefit to patients,” said AbbVie Vice President of Pharmaceutical Discovery, Jim Sullivan. “This alliance is an important part of our research strategy and complements our significant footprint here in Ireland.”

AbbVie is a global, research-based biopharmaceutical company formed in 2013 following separation from Abbott Laboratories. The company’s mission is to develop and market advanced therapies that address some of the world’s most complex and serious diseases. AbbVie employs more than 28,000 people worldwide, almost 600 of which are employed across five sites in Ireland. The company has two manufacturing plants in Sligo and a third in Cork, each of which is uniquely focused on supporting portions of AbbVie’s top 20 products. The company has invested steadily in Ireland since its launch in 2013 announcing capital investments of more than €130m at its three manufacturing centers over the past three years. In late 2015, AbbVie also launched two new therapeutic research collaborations valued at €10 million with academic institutions in Cork and Dublin in partnership with the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI).

Daniel Crowley, acting CEO of GMI, commented: “This partnership validates the vision that created Genomics Medicine Ireland. With AbbVie and WuXi NextCODE we will leverage our deep expertise in life sciences and the unique characteristics of the Irish population to discover critical insights into disease, disease progression, and therapeutic response. The resulting therapies to cure and prevent these diseases will benefit patients both here in Ireland and around the world.”

Founded in 2015, GMI is an Irish life-sciences company leading large-scale, population-based genome research studies on the island of Ireland examining the relationship between genetics, health and disease. It is building a preeminent disease-specific database of population genomics.

“GMI’s alliance with AbbVie demonstrates the potential of GMI to drive world-class innovation in healthcare and provides the opportunity for Irish clinicians and researchers to advance genetic discovery and for patients to benefit from the prospective development of new therapeutics,” said Paul Saunders, Head of Innovation with the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund.