Stanford Alliance for Innovative Medicines (AIM): Spring 2020 Call for Letters of Intent

The Stanford Alliance for Innovative Medicines (Stanford AIM) is seeking Letters of Intent (LOIs) for target-driven drug discovery proposals from Stanford faculty. Stanford AIM was launched in summer 2017 as a new partnership with Takeda to accelerate the translation of research discoveries at Stanford into next-generation therapies of all modalities. 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.

The ideal project for 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 LOI identifies 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.