Three biomedical companies from across the globe are banding together with research institutions to develop knowledge about a “super-family” of protein receptors called G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). Images of these biomarkers could open the door to a new era of pharmaceuticals.

Amgen from the U.S., Japan-based Ono Pharmaceutical and Sanofi out of France will be teaming up with the University of Southern California, the iHuman Institute at ShanghaiTech University and the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica to conduct future studies. 

GPCRs moderate what channels in and out of cells and they are not yet very well understood by scientists. However, these very protein receptors were the subject of Nobel Prize-winning research in recent years, according to this Reuters report.