GSK Plc, JAX‑NYSCF Launch Five‑Year Plan to Humanise Neurodegeneration Research

GSK and JAX‑NYSCF set five‑year plan to humanise neurodegeneration research

GSK Plc is entering a five‑year strategic research collaboration with the Jackson Laboratory–New York Stem Cell Foundation Collaborative (JAX‑NYSCF) to advance human cellular models of neurodegenerative disease, the companies announce on Feb. 17, 2026. The programme aims to close a persistent gap between laboratory discovery and clinical medicine by combining patient‑derived induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) systems with large‑scale automation and advanced data science. GSK is contributing its neurodegeneration, translational science, drug discovery, immunology and inflammation capabilities to build models that are more predictive of human biology.

The collaboration tasks JAX‑NYSCF with extending iPSC platforms that capture human cellular complexity at scale while GSK focuses on using those models to identify and prioritise therapeutic candidates and stratify patients likely to respond. Lon Cardon, president and CEO of The Jackson Laboratory, describes the work as bridging traditional disease models with next‑generation, patient‑derived cellular systems to accelerate therapies to patients. Chris Austin, senior vice president and global head of Research Technologies at GSK, says combining stem cell technology, access to relevant patient cohorts and automation with GSK’s research capabilities is expected to yield new translational insights.

The programme emphasises scalable, disease‑relevant cellular models and cross‑institutional data integration to speed translation of human‑relevant discoveries into potential medicines for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative conditions. The partners plan to leverage JAX‑NYSCF’s automation platforms and cohort access alongside GSK’s drug discovery pipelines to improve candidate selection and reduce attrition in later‑stage development. The initiative is presented as a multi‑year effort to generate resources the wider scientific community can use to interrogate human disease biology.

Scaling models, automation and data science

JAX‑NYSCF is applying its recently expanded discovery platform, following the acquisition of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, to scale production of patient‑derived iPSC models and integrate high‑content datasets. The collaboration places a heavy emphasis on data harmonisation and analytics to link cellular phenotypes with clinical and molecular patient information.

Institutional context and broader aims

The Jackson Laboratory remains an independent nonprofit biomedical research institution with an NCI‑designated Cancer Center, and the partnership signals growing industry interest in human‑based preclinical systems. GSK’s involvement reflects wider pharmaceutical efforts to adopt human cellular models and automation to improve translational predictability in neurodegenerative drug discovery.