New Global Academic Alliance To Speed Drug Discovery

Six leading institutions have formed an alliance designed to accelerate the translation of academic research into usable medicines and therapies.  The six include:

• The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD), Canada
• Lead Discovery Centre (LDC), Germany
• The Scripps Research Institute, Scripps Florida, United States
• The Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3), KU Leuven R&D, Belgium
• Medical Research Council (MRC) Technology, United Kingdom
• Cancer Research Technology (CRT), United Kingdom

PharmTech Talk » New Global Alliance Aims To Speed Up Academic Drug Discovery.

The six organizations plan to facilitate international cooperation, develop standards and performance measurements, share best practices, expertise and resources, and collaborate on drug development projects.  Ultimately , they will work together to improve the conversion of global early-stage research into much-needed new therapies. Currently, they have a portfolio of more than 165 innovative therapeutic projects targeting significant unmet medical needs. 

This is yet another shot at improving translational activities.  Lack of good translation seems to be a popular whipping boy as to one major element that plaques the current pharma model. We'll have to see if efforts by this group or others like NIH really have a winning effect. 

Comments

[Suleman]

At the moment in any discussion on collaboration big pharma (or their corporate venture arms) call the shots because they know the other party is desperate for cash, and there are few other places to go. However once biotech research organisations (such as the ones listed in your article or small biotech companies) start to form meaningful alliances with each other the conditions change. Big pharma companies might find themselves competing with each other to gain access to the alliance, and as a whole their negotiating power may diminish.