By Nancy Garcia
Associate Editor

As part of its global growth strategy, Amgen Inc. is spending $80 million over 10 yearsto fund a basic research institute in Toronto that will be headed by the scientist whodiscovered T cell receptors.

"It's a novel and refreshing way of funding science," immunologist Tak Mak,head of the new Amgen Institute, told BioWorld. He currently heads the division ofcellular and molecular biology at the Ontario Cancer Institute/Princess Margaret Hospital,which is affiliated with the University of Toronto, Canada's largest university.

The institute will occupy 25,000 square feet of space in 1994. It will be located nextdoor to OCI/PMH, which will provide such resources as a library and lecture halls. Mak isrecrating eight principal investigators and 70 research employees to study issues inimmune function, and perhaps neurobiology, that have implications for human disease.

Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) of Thousand Oaks, Calif., was "very interested" in Mak'sresearch area, which complements the industry leader's own ongoing research in such areasas inflammation and growth control, Daniel Billen, the institute's general manager, told BioWorld.

Knockout Mice

In 1991, Mak created two strains of "knockout" mice that lack immune systemcomponents and can be used to study immune interventions based on lymphokines andcytokines. Some knockout mice have impaired T cell functions, while others lack specificreceptors.

With the agreement, Amgen receives exclusive rights to four pending patents held byOCI/PMH on the knockout mice, and will have the rights to any inventions derived by theAmgen Institute.

Mak's work should be accelerated at the new institute, where he will spend 90 percentof his time concentrating on science, Billen said. "We have to let the scientists bescientists and not burden them with administration."

Mak said he'll have the "luxury of writing about half the grants," and theresearchers will have broad latitude in choosing projects. The affiliation was structuredfor review after 10 years, at which time it may continue or be disbanded, he said.

Mak compared the institute to Hoffman-La Roche's Basal Institute for Immunology inSwitzerland, founded in 1968. The institute has a core of about seven permanent membersand 43 young scientists who pursue projects there in their own labs for one to five years,said Stefan Ryser, manager of public policy and communications at Hoffmann-La Roche and aformer scientist at the Basal Institute.

Ryser said the Basal institute was based "on a willingness to fund basic researchjust for science, for the beauty of science."

Although Roche has first rights to any commercial developments that might stem from theinstitute, the primary benefit has been a flow of talented scientists to thepharmaceutical company rather than products or compounds, Ryser said. Although the Basalinstitute is fully funded by Roche, the majority of its board members are from outside thecompany.

Canada is 3 to 4 Years Behind U.S.

Although Canada has federal and provincial incentives to encourage research anddevelopment funding, Amgen funded the institute in Toronto because of Mak's stature,Billen said.

"The biotechnology industry in Canada is most probably where it was three to fouryears ago in the United States," he added.

Canada, with one-tenth the population of the U.S., could receive an economic boost fromthe R&D investment, although companies will still need expertise at gainingmuch-needed FDA approval in the U.S. for any products, Billen said.

Amgen Canada was incorporated in 1991 in Mississauga, Ontario, to focus on Canadianapproval and marketing of the company's granulocyte-colony stimulating factor, Neupogen,which boosts the infection-fighting capacity of chemotherapy patients.

Besides establishing the institute, Amgen is also creating an endowed chair at OCI/PMHand a training program for 50 more scientists.

"It shows that certain biopharmaceutical companies now have enough money to dothese kinds of things," Mak said. "I personally think it's a smart thing to do.They want to plow money back to academics, where there will be reasonable freedom forscientists to carry out curiosity-driven science."