Putting a spotlight on Johnson & Johnson Innovation collaborations in the UK

Collaboration with others is key to what we do at Johnson & Johnson Innovation, as we know that only by collaborating can we bring the most impactful and transformational solutions to patients.

We are centred in London and fully embedded into the UK’s unique innovation ecosystem with an integrated network across all the life-sciences hotspots. Four of the top ten life sciences universities in the world are based in the UK, granting access to incredible talent and cutting-edge innovation. There is a thriving biotech landscape with dynamic early-stage funding possibilities, shown by the fact that between 2018 and 2020, 31% of all European biotech’s were founded in the UK - and over 40% of our EMEA collaborations in the last ten years have been in the UK.

The strength of the UK innovation landscape is represented by its many collaborations and partnerships. Whether they are big companies, research institutes, small start-ups, government, research charities or the NHS, we all are aiming for the same purpose: to create innovations that improve healthcare and make lives better for people everywhere.

Nerida Scott, Ph.D.

Regional Head, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA)

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Strategic collaborations across the UK

Progressing promising innovation in immunology

Mestag Therapeutics was founded in 2020 with the mission to develop impactful new medicines for patients with inflammatory disease or cancer by targeting activated fibroblast populations and their role in influencing immune effector cells in disease. Mestag’s approach aligns with the strategic interests of the Immunology Therapeutic Area of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson (“Janssen”), which motivated Johnson & Johnson Innovation - JJDC, Inc. (“JJDC”) to invest in Mestag in late 2020. In 2021, Mestag announced a target discovery, option and license agreement with Janssen, under which Mestag would interrogate fibroblast subpopulations across diseases and their interactions with key aspects of the immune system.

Generating unprecedented data to address multiple diseases

In January 2021, we became a Founding Industry Member of Our Future Health, which will be the UK’s largest ever health research programme, bringing together 5 million UK volunteers with the aim of developing new ways to understand health and diseases. Johnson & Johnson, pharmaceutical industry peers, charities, biotech start-ups, diagnostics players and other researchers in this field will be able to analyze this dataset, with the goal of helping transform the prevention, early detection, and treatment of a range of diseases with a higher-than-ever degree of precision.

Whole genome sequencing: advancing our understanding of human health

In another project, progress was made by UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database and research resource, to conduct the world’s largest whole genome sequencing initiative supported by a consortium of government, charity and industry members, including Johnson & Johnson. In 2021, the Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) for the first 200,000 UK Biobank participants (of a total 500,000) was made available to researchers with the aim of enabling them to better understand the role of genetics for health outcomes and the advancement of drug discovery and development. The dataset will allow approved researchers globally to study the 98% of genetic code that is not protein-coding and previously had no known purpose.

Revolutionising the future of mental health

Akrivia Health’s AI driven Natural Language Processing (NLP) advances drug discovery & development in mental health and dementia and supports the development of therapeutic and non-therapeutic improvements across multiple stages of the process. Akrivia have combined working with the world’s most in-depth psychiatric clinical database, with specialist AI scientists and a global community of individuals to utilise longitudinal real-world data to change the trajectory of research in mental illnesses and dementias.As a virtual resident company of Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS (JLABS) @ BE, Akrivia accesses mentorship from Janssen science experts, broadening their understanding of data science and neuroscience challenges, opportunities to meet with senior Johnson & Johnson R&D leaders and entry into the global JLABS community.