What does pharma want from academic drug discovery?

Abstract

The pharmaceutical industry needs to collaborate with a wide group of stakeholders to identify and develop effective treatments for neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, in particular academic partners. There are multiple advantages to industry-academic partnerships. Such collaborations bring together significant depth and breadth of complimentary expertise. Academia can often be the source of ‘disruptive innovations’, including new targets, biomarkers, and delivery approaches, allowing new insights, technologies and model systems to be developed from unexpected sources, either directly from academia or via the biotech companies which may have spun out of academic teams. Funding sources, such as charities or investors, may allow academic groups to make orthologous bets on novel treatment approaches. It is important for patients that industry and academia work closely together to develop the best molecules against validated targets with the ability to determine the right dose and the right patient populations. Johnson & Johnson Innovation was established in order to access innovative approaches, with Innovation Centres located in California, Boston, London and Asia Pacific with the ability to invest in or directly collaborate with academic teams or biotech spin offs. So what is industry looking for from academic drug discovery? In the ideal situation, the academic researchers will have a novel lead molecule which is likely to be safe, well tolerated and developable, with a validated or at least plausible biological hypothesis that can be tested early. However, significant value can be generated earlier than this new methods can develop molecules against previously intractable targets. Alternatively, academic drug discoverers may focus on the demonstration of the effects of treatment combinations which may be beyond the bandwidth of industry, but are likely to be of increasing importance. There is significant value in academic drug discovery, but this value relies on harnessing the unique aspects of academic research as opposed to replicating the drug discovery apparatus found within small and large industry. It is important that industry and academia work together for the benefits of the patients.