Pfizer is forming a network of academic collaborators, Pfizer’s Global Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI), based in Cambridge, MA, USA. Pfizer hopes to have between seven and eight partners in its network, which will focus solely on developing biologics-based drugs. Three or four of the partners will be based in the U.S., one or two in Europe, and the remaining in Asia or Australia.

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), CA, USA, has signed on as the first partner. Pizer will open labs adjacent to the UCSF campus, with 25 to 30 Pfizer scientists eventually working alongside university scientists to find new biologics targeting a range of diseases. Scientists will have access to Pfizer’s phage display libraries and other research tools.

The next two partners, leading academic institutions based in Boston and New York City, are expected to be announced before the end of the year.

• Pfizer Inc., New York, USA