Japanese pharmaceutical company Kyowa Kirin Co Ltd (TSE:4151) announced on Thursday the launch of a five year strategic research alliance with Harvard University to help accelerate discovery and early-stage innovation in translational biomedical science.

By creating opportunities for formal scientific collaboration, the alliance aims to leverage industry insight and drug development expertise to advance biomedical innovations developed in Harvard labs toward the clinical development of important new therapies.

Projects under the alliance will be initiated by Harvard's life-science faculty through a proposal process. Projects selected for funding and scientific collaboration will be identified by a Joint Steering Committee, comprising membership from both Harvard and Kyowa Kirin.