J&J neuroscience head urges pooling of brain R&D - MarketWatch

"A top scientist from Johnson & Johnson is in Europe this week to urge pharmaceutical companies, academia and governments there to join a U.S. initiative to combine research efforts to better understand and battle brain disease, one of the most devastating illnesses facing mankind. Husseini Manji, J&J's global therapeutic area head for neuroscience, has arranged meetings in London and Brussels to promote a new initiative called "One Mind for Research". ...Brain disorders represent 35% of the total disease burden in Europe, according to a report published in the European Neurological Review. But costly failures in late-stage drug trials have persuaded some companies including the U.K.'s GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca to close down their research activities into a range of brain diseases such as depression, given the scientific uncertainties in the field and the problems in finding new advances....Launched in May and backed by former U.S. Congressman Patrick Kennedy, "One Mind for Research" aims to build a global network and data repository of all relevant imaging, genome, and patient records. The initiative wants to pool early stage assets and neuroscience insight to find cures for brain disorders....The key part of the plan is to have open access at the early stages of R&D. "Some of it would be completely open so that the data generated is available to everyone to benefit from. This would pertain to what we call pre-competitive research....There's no question that different companies are sometimes duplicating effort...," said Manji, who worked at the National Institutes of Health before joining J&J. "Our knowledge base and data are largely siloed, and incentives for research and collaboration are lacking. We're going to learn a lot more about these diseases by breaking down the silos than we would have working in isolation." ..."