The Importance of the Industrial - Academic Interface for Innovation in the Pharmaceutical Sector

The pharmaceutical sector has in recent years suffered from a perceived lack of successful new drugs, especially blockbusters. There is much debate as to the causes of this, but the current regulatory and financial environment requires that the sector tackles new and innovative therapeutic targets that challenge its current science base. These new targets will continue the shift away from chemical entities (NCEs), to biologicals and in the longer term to explore all “drug space”. “Drug space” that is not part of the current pharma repertoire includes higher molecular weight drugs e.g. nanomedicines, nucleic acid-based drugs¹, and “non-Lipinski” inhibitors of protein-protein interactions (Figure 1). As a result the therapeutic sector is actively looking outside its walls, taking lessons from the biotech revolution, for new thinking from academics and SMEs.

Examples from the past

Historically, industrial-academic contact in the NCE area has been, in general, limited to the education of new employees. This interface changed somewhat with the emergence of the biotech industry, largely based on the new and unexpected molecular and cell biology tools developed by the academic sector, especially in the US. These opportunities were seized by visionary entrepreneurs and despite the conservatism and scepticism of large companies, new businesses, such as Genentech and Amgen were formed and were successful. . Large companies can be slow to take on transforming technologies, having evolved processes which support incremental technical improvements, with a view that they can later buy in additional required technologies.  Some enterprising companies are currently trying to avoid idea stagnation by encouraging clusters of start-ups businesses - research incubators where less conventional ideas can be evaluated, or through creating smaller, devolved research groups with greater independence and autonomy.

... continue reading (Complete Document only accessible for ETP Members)