Corey Goodman

Pfizer expands adult stem cell therapy work

John Carroll — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 08:36:14 -0400

Pfizer is steadily expanding its presence in the stem cell field. The Wall Street Journal notes that in November the pharma giant will open a regenerative medicine shop in Cambridge, England. It opened a similar unit in Cambridge, MA earlier this year. And the pharma giant is zeroing in on the therapeutic potential of adult stem cells. Pfizer's interest in stem cells extends to an investment in EyeCyte, a San Diego biotech that is investigating a cure for retina damage.

Initially Pfizer will focus on the near-term use of stem cells for safety studies--an important trend in the field. But further down the R&D road it plans to determine how stem cells could be used to develop tissue that could be used to repair damaged hearts and other organs. And it's dividing the work in the U.S. and the UK--with the Massachusetts unit centering on heart disease and diabetes while researchers in England study ophthalmology and the central nervous system.

"Pfizer has put its flag in the ground that there is a future in regenerative medicine," said Pfizer stem cell chief Corey Goodman earlier this year.

- read the report in the Wall Street Journal

Pfizer bankrolls a stem cell start-up

John Carroll — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:15:25 -0400

Pfizer is bankrolling a biotech start-up that will concentrate on developing new stem cell therapies for eye disease. Scripps Research Institute's Martin Friedlander has undertaken animal studies that identified bone and blood-marrow stem cells that could repair damaged blood vessels in the eye. And the new company, EyeCyte, will be responsible for advancing that research into the clinic. Pfizer is investing $3 million in the company and has an option to buy it if continues to look promising.

"Pfizer has put its flag in the ground that there is a future in regenerative medicine," said Pfizer's Corey Goodman.

- read the report from Forbes

Pfizer blazes new research path with university deal

John Carroll — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:37:18 -0400

Taking a page from the biotech playbook, Pfizer has just inked a three-year, $9.5 million research collaboration pact with the University of California, San Francisco. The money will be used to fund early scientific work into new therapies and devices.

"We're looking for science at the grassroots level," Pfizer's Corey Goodman told the San Francisco Chronicle. Goodman, who's worked at UC San Francisco as well as Stanford and Berkeley, was recently hired by Pfizer to run its Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center.

It's not unusual for a drug company to fund university research work. But university officials note that the arrangement is usually very narrowly defined around a project of particular interest. Pfizer, though, is taking a different tack, opening itself up to proposals from the researchers as a way of ginning fresh ideas.

- check out the article in the San Francisco Chronicle