JAX-NYSCF Collaborative and GSK Form Five-Year Collaboration to Advance Translational Models for Neurodegenerative Disease Research

The Jackson Laboratory–New York Stem Cell Foundation Collaborative (JAX-NYSCF) and GSK plc (LSE: GSK) have entered a five-year strategic research collaboration aimed at advancing human cellular models of neurodegenerative disease research, with a particular focus on Alzheimer's disease. The partnership, announced on February 17, 2026, brings together JAX-NYSCF's automated induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) platform and GSK's translational science and drug discovery capabilities. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Structure and Scope of the JAX NYSCF GSK Collaboration

The collaboration is structured as a research-stage partnership rather than a traditional licensing or co-development agreement. No specific drug candidates, molecular targets, or therapeutic compounds were identified as part of the deal. Instead, the parties described a shared objective of generating disease-relevant cellular models — specifically, patient-derived iPSC lines differentiated into neurons, glia, and other cell types implicated in neurodegeneration — to interrogate the underlying biology of Alzheimer's disease and related conditions.

JAX-NYSCF contributes its automated stem cell platform, access to characterized patient cohorts, and integrated data science tools. GSK contributes domain expertise in neurodegeneration, translational science, drug discovery infrastructure, and what the company described as established capabilities in immunology and inflammation. The stated goal is to build stem cell models that are more predictive of human disease biology than conventional animal-based or engineered cell systems, and to use those models to identify and prioritize drug candidates for further development.

No upfront payment, milestone structure, royalty terms, territorial rights, or equity investment was disclosed. The absence of disclosed financial terms is consistent with collaborations involving nonprofit research institutions, where arrangements may involve research funding rather than structured biopharmaceutical deal economics.

Operational Model and Translational Models for Neurodegeneration

Under the collaboration, JAX-NYSCF will leverage its large-scale automation platform to generate iPSC lines from patient cohorts with defined clinical histories and genetic profiles. These lines can be differentiated into disease-relevant cell types — including neurons, astrocytes, microglia, and oligodendrocytes — enabling researchers to study disease phenotypes that emerge from actual patient genomes rather than from artificial overexpression systems.

GSK's role centers on applying its translational science and drug discovery expertise to the resulting models. Chris Austin, senior vice president and global head of Research Technologies at GSK, stated that the collaboration "complements the work we are doing at GSK on cellular models of disease, and offers the potential to yield new insights that may help accelerate therapeutic discovery for devastating neurodegenerative diseases." Austin noted that the partnership could help "determine which patients are most likely to benefit from new therapies" — a reference to patient stratification, a persistent challenge in Alzheimer's disease treatment development.

The collaboration does not appear to include provisions for licensing specific compounds or advancing candidates into clinical development. It is positioned as a pre-competitive effort to improve the foundational tools used in early drug discovery for neurodegeneration.

Background: JAX-NYSCF Platform and GSK's Neuroscience Interests

JAX-NYSCF was formed following The Jackson Laboratory's acquisition of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, announced in October 2025. Lon Cardon, president and CEO of JAX, described the GSK collaboration as "a concrete example of where early-stage biomedical research is heading," noting that the combined entity now has the capacity to bridge traditional disease models with "next-generation patient-derived iPSC models that more accurately capture the complexity of human biology at scale."

The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution headquartered in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center and approximately 3,000 employees across facilities in Maine, Connecticut, New York, California, Florida, and Japan.

GSK has maintained a presence in neuroscience research, though the company's pipeline has been more heavily weighted toward infectious disease, oncology, and immunology in recent years. The company's publicly disclosed neuroscience assets have included work on neuroinflammatory targets, and the collaboration with JAX-NYSCF appears to represent a channel for expanding GSK's neurodegenerative disease research capabilities through external partnerships rather than internal pipeline expansion alone.

Competitive Context for Drug Development in Alzheimer's Disease

The collaboration enters a landscape in which Alzheimer's disease treatment development remains one of the most active and challenging areas in biopharma. The approvals of lecanemab (Eisai/BioArctic) in 2023 and donanemab (Eli Lilly) in 2024 — both anti-amyloid-beta antibodies — established the first disease-modifying therapies for early Alzheimer's, though both carry safety concerns related to amyloid-related imaging abnormalities (ARIA) and demonstrated modest clinical benefit in slowing cognitive decline.

Beyond amyloid, the field has seen growing investment in anti-tau therapies, neuroinflammation-directed approaches targeting TREM2 and CD33, GLP-1 receptor agonists being evaluated for neuroprotective effects, and gene therapy strategies. The persistent high failure rate of Alzheimer's drug candidates in clinical trials — historically exceeding 99 percent — has driven recognition across the industry that translational models for neurodegeneration must improve if the probability of clinical success is to increase.

The iPSC-based approach at the center of the JAX-NYSCF platform directly addresses this gap. By generating stem cell models from diverse patient populations carrying disease-relevant genetic variants, the platform enables phenotypic screening and target identification in human cellular systems at a scale that was not technically feasible until recent advances in automation and data science. The collaboration with GSK provides a pathway for connecting those platform-level insights to the drug discovery and development infrastructure of a large pharmaceutical company.

Neurodegenerative Disease Research: What the Deal Does Not Include

It is worth noting what this deal does not contain. There are no named drug candidates, no identified molecular targets, no clinical-stage assets, no regulatory milestones, and no disclosed financial commitments. The collaboration is entirely pre-clinical and pre-target in nature. Any therapeutic programs that may eventually emerge from the partnership would presumably require separate agreements governing development, commercialization, and economics.

The deal is best understood as an infrastructure investment — a bet by both parties that building more accurate human disease models at the front end of the discovery process will yield downstream returns in the form of better-validated targets, more translatable candidates, and reduced clinical attrition in a therapeutic area where conventional approaches have repeatedly failed.

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