Stanford Alliance for Innovative Medicines (AIM) - Fall 2017 Call for Letters of Intent

Stanford AIM was launched in summer 2017 as a new partnership with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company to accelerate the translation of research discoveries at Stanford into small molecule drugs and other therapies. Stanford AIM brings Stanford and Takeda scientists into close collaboration to share ideas, knowhow, and technical acumen. Stanford faculty projects selected to participate in the program will benefit from access to industry drug development know-how and in-kind use of robust industry research functionalities such as medicinal chemistry, high-throughput screening, pharmacokinetics, or safety/toxicity profiling. Stanford will retain all intellectual property from Stanford AIM-supported research and Takeda scientists will get the chance to participate in cutting edge research at one of the nation's top research universities.

Stanford AIM accepts letters of intent from Stanford faculty approximately every six months. Ideal projects for entrance into Stanford AIM will have a compelling therapeutic rationale, an identified protein target that is amenable to therapeutic intervention, and sufficient evidence to support the rationale for a drug discovery effort. It is essential that the letters of intent submitted to the program identify a novel target or a novel approach to a known target with a distinct advantage over existing approaches to that target. Stanford AIM is open to all therapeutic areas and modalities with an emphasis on small molecule or protein therapeutics at this time. The goal of Stanford AIM is to advance selected faculty projects through proof-of-concept in animals by leveraging in-kind access to discovery and preclinical development capabilities through Takeda.