GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) has named eight academics, including two University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientists, as winners in its first ever competition designed to find potential new drugs in places other than the laboratories of pharmaceutical companies.

GSK’s “Discovery Fast Track” competition drew 142 proposals from 70 universities, clinics and hospitals.

The two UNC winners are Deborah O’Brien, a professor in the department of cell biology and physiology whose laboratory focuses on molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate spermatogenesis, sperm motility and fertilization; and John Sondek, a professor of pharmacology who has joint appointments in biochemistry and biophysics. O’Brien won for her novel approach to regulation of male fertility and Sondek was recognized for his novel approach for new treatments for metastatic epithelial cancers.

The winning projects cover a range of unmet medical needs including antibiotics resistance, certain cancers and diseases of the developing world. The winning scientists now have the opportunity to work with GSK’s Discovery Partnerships with Academia (DPAc) team, which sponsored the competition. The GSK team and the scientists will work together to screen and identify novel compounds. If the research proves successful, the winning scientists could be offered a partnership with the DPAc to do more work to refine the compounds and develop them as potential new medicines.

Britain-based GSK, which operates its U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park, launched the DPAc program in the United Kingdom in 2010. The program spreads both the risk and reward of the drug discovery efforts. GSK provides funding and other resources for the partner laboratories. So far, GSK has started nine collaborations in the U.K., the U.S. and Canada spanning nine disease areas. GSK said that work on the winning projects will begin immediately and the first screens are expected to be completed in mid-2014.

“The quality of the entries, from some of the top research organizations in North America, was exceptional,” Pearl Huang, Global Head of DPAc said in a statement.”We believe the winning projects represent groundbreaking research concepts that address underserved or unmet medical needs and could help to bring transformative treatments to patients.”

GSK said that the winner’s name from the Harvard Medical School and the area of science will not be announced. The other 2013 GSK Discovery Fast Track winners are:

  • Sarah Ades, Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University: A novel approach for an anti-microbial agent class of antibiotic for gram negative bacteria
  • Myles Akabas, M.D., Ph.D., Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University: A novel approach for new treatments for malaria
  • Lauren Brown, Ph.D., and Scott Schaus, Ph.D., Boston University and Jim McKerrow, M.D., Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco: A novel approach for new treatments for leishmaniasis
  • Rahul Kohli, M.D., Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania: A novel approach for the design of antibiotics to overcome clinical resistance
  • Richard Leduc, Ph.D., Université de Sherbrooke: A novel approach for new treatments for iron overload diseases