The Johns Hopkins University has formed a joint training program with Medimmune, an international drug company. Believed to be the first of its kind between a major university and a biopharmaceutical company in the United States, the Johns Hopkins-MedImmune Scholars Program will prepare Johns Hopkins graduate students for careers in biopharma and biomedicine. A subsidiary of AstraZeneca, a large pharmaceutical company, MedImmune is best known for developing treatments for respiratory disease and for producing FluMist, a nasal spray flu vaccine.

As many as 15 students from the Ph.D. programs in the school of medicine and Whiting School of Engineering will begin the program next year. Taught by university professors and MedImmune scientists, they will gain research experience through thesis projects conducted jointly in Johns Hopkins and MedImmune labs.