Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly signed a deal last week with the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), providing for Lilly to screen over 3,800 currently approved and investigational new drugs for new potential therapeutic indications.  The medicines, which are part of NCATS’ extensive pharmaceutical collection, will be screened over the next 12-18 months.  Results will be posted online and publically accessible at the NCGC Pharmaceutical Collection website.

NCATS, having only been launched in January of this year, is the NIH’s youngest center.  With a mission to enhance efficiency in the drug development and approval process, NCATS acting director Thomas Insel said of the partnership with Lilly, “Working together, we can make drug development pipelines more productive.  The key is precompetitive collaboration to benefit all partners, ensuring broad access to the results.”

To read the press release from NIH and Lilly, click here.