UK pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has announced a five year collaboration with Cambridge University despite claims that a discontinued version of its heartburn drug causes cancer.

GSK is investing over £50m in what is being called the Cambridge-GSK Translational Immunology Collaboration (CG-TIC).

The five year collaboration with the University and its hospitals will focus on “examining disease, its progression, how patients respond to therapies, and developing biomarkers for rapid diagnosis,” with a special focus on kidney and respiratory diseases.

This news comes after the pharmaceutical giant paid as much as $2.2bn (£1.68bn) to settle thousands of cases in US courts over claims that a discontinued version of its heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer.

Earlier this month, GSK announced that it had reached agreements with ten law firms who represent around 80,000 claimants. This makes up 93% of the pending cases in the US.

GSK will also pay $70m to settle a whistleblower complaint by a laboratory that claimed the drug manufacturer defrauded the US government by withholding information about Zantac’s cancer risks.

The collaboration will apply an array of new techniques, including AI, machine learning and single cell technologies to characterise how genes are expressed in individual cells. The collaboration aims to use these techniques to begin new studies and early phase trials for new therapies for a number of hard-to-treat kidney and respiratory diseases.

Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, welcomed the collaboration. He said: “The UK’s life sciences industry is thriving, driving innovation and improving lives. This collaboration between GSK and the University of Cambridge demonstrates our country’s leading research and development capabilities.”

Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, added: “The University sits at the heart of Europe’s leading life sciences cluster, where excellent research and the NHS’s clinical resources combine with the talent generated by the many innovative bioscience companies that call Cambridge home.”

“Through this very important collaboration with GSK, Cambridge will be able to drive economic growth for the UK while improving the health of people in this country and around the world,” she continued.

Despite Zantac’s initial success with annual sales topping $1bn following its US release in 1983, US regulators pulled the drug off shelves in 2020 due to fears that a key ingredient, ranitidine, could turn into a substance that may cause cancer when exposed to heat. What followed was tens of thousands of lawsuits against the company.

In 2019, UK doctors were told to stop prescribing four variations of the drug as a “precautionary measure”.

GSK has not admitted to wrongdoing in any of the cases. The company has also said in a statement to its investors that although there is “no consistent or reliable evidence” the drug increases the risk of cancer, the paid settlements “remove significant financial uncertainty”.

A drug under the name of Zantac 360, which does not contain the alleged cancer-causing ingredient ranitidine, is still being sold currently.

GSK’s collaboration with Cambridge University comes after last week’s announcement that Cancer Research UK invested £173m - the largest grant awarded by the charity outside of London — in its Cambridge Institute.

When asked about CG-TIC in light of GSK’s recent settlements, a spokesperson for the University said: “This important collaboration represents an opportunity to help patients in the UK and around the world who are struggling with complex disease”.