Bayer announced a five-year strategic collaboration with the Nashville, Tennesse-based Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) to accelerate discovery and development of therapies for cardiovascular and kidney diseases, two areas of high unmet medical need.
The alliance combines Bayer’s drug discovery and translational science expertise with VUMC’s deep clinical research capabilities and real-world data resources, aiming to advance targets through to Investigational New Drug applications. In particular, Bayer aims to leverage VUMC’s resource platform, including comprehensive datasets hosted in Vanderbilt’s BioVU collection of DNA and plasma, to enable data-driven insights and accelerate discovery and development.
“This collaboration exemplifies our shared vision to harness cutting-edge science and real-world data to bring innovative treatments to patients faster,” Bayer said, highlighting VUMC’s biobank and analytical infrastructure as key enablers.
The initiative builds on Bayer’s broader strategy of integrating academic research with industry development expertise to strengthen its cardiovascular and renal pipeline. Bayer established a cardiovascular research collaboration with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in 2013, focusing on precision cardiology and genomic-driven target discovery, extended in June 2025 for a further five years. And in China, Bayer last year renewed a research partnership with Tsinghua University in Beijing first initiated in 2009, to support joint therapeutic innovation in a range of therapeutic areas including cardiology and kidney disease.