CoSolve
Finding bold and innovative solutions to transform patients' lives
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CoSolve is a new global, virtual, Open Innovation challenge at AstraZeneca, seeking to find new collaborators – those with the boldest innovations and solutions that will help us create the next wave of medicines to help transform patients' lives.
Helping us find real solutions for real challenges we face
At AstraZeneca, we know that however innovative our science, however effective our medicines and delivery, to achieve all we want to achieve, we cannot do it alone.
CoSolve is a quarterly initiative that launches with seven ambitious challenges currently facing our drug discovery and development teams. We want to break down the traditional barriers to collaboration and find ideas that are immediately translatable. Each challenge is about helping us accelerate our delivery to get the right treatments to the right patients.
This means we want bold innovators, particularly from start-ups and early-stage biotechs, with the ability and freedom of operation to rapidly progress their idea into a full project in real time with support from AstraZeneca.
Join our Introduction to CoSolve Webinar on 15 October at 3pm BST.
This session will see key AstraZeneca Therapeutic Area and Open Innovation leads provide more information on CoSolve, the individual challenges and the importance of collaboration to AstraZeneca. Register to hear directly from the experts behind the challenges.
Are you the innovator we need?
Countdown to when the CoSolve round closes
The Challenges
Initially there are seven open challenges, spanning some of our key therapy areas, and science and technology platforms. New challenges will be announced every quarter, so keep checking back if your idea or innovation isn’t featured this time. The first challenges are:
Mechanisms for remission/inducing tolerance in immune/allergic diseases
We are looking for ways to understand potential mechanisms through which immune tolerance can be restored, which may be relevant to many immune and allergic diseases.
Novel mechanisms for the treatment of COPD
We are seeking novel mechanisms for intervention in COPD, especially reduction in tissue damage, exacerbations and inflammation, and ways to increase the effectiveness of existing drugs, particularly steroids.
Targeted delivery for kidney and heart therapeutic targets
We are looking for ideas about how to deliver and retain active pharmacological agents in the heart and kidney.
Cell-based regenerative medicine to treat metabolic disease, reverse CKD or repair tissues affected by cardiovascular disease
We are looking for ways to develop cellular therapies to improve the health of patients with cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases.
Novel technologies to assess key aspects of patients’ health-related quality of life
We want to develop novel technologies that can collect more reliable, valid and responsive health-relevant data from patients living with renal disease or heart failure.
Broadly prevent nosocomial multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacterial infections
We want to design a multi-component vaccine or monoclonal antibody cocktail expressed from a nucleic acid vector (mRNA, viral vector, DNA). This would be given to patients before or on entry into hospital to protect them against the top three or four hospital-acquired infections – the nosocomial MDR bacterial pathogens Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and Acinetobacter baumannii.
Non-specific immune booster to protect the elderly (and others) from infection
We are looking to create a treatment that boosts the immune system to enable those whose immune system has become less effective - especially the elderly - to combat infections.
How does CoSolve work?
CoSolve is all about speed. We are looking for solutions that can be put into practice in a 12-18 month timeframe. Selected partners will be innovators with the ability and freedom of operation to rapidly progress their idea into a full project with support from AstraZeneca. The key steps in the process are:
Challenges which require innovative solutions are posted here in the CoSolve challenge room and will be open for submission for 8 weeks.
Following an in-depth internal review, finalists will be selected to participate in the Challenge Week – a virtual, intensive week where they will pitch a more in-depth proposal of their idea and work up the solution with AstraZeneca scientists.
At the end of the Challenge Week, collaboration agreements will be put in place with specified milestones and the winning projects can begin immediately.
AstraZeneca will provide funding to enable these projects to achieve initial data-driven milestones.