Academic CRO/Industrial Collaborations in Drug Discovery

Current trends in Collaborative Drug Discovery and Strategies to De-risk Open Innovation-based Precompetitive Iniatives

Rathnam Chaguturu
Executive Director-High Throughput Screening Center, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66047

Abstract:

Modern drug discovery enterprise is full of promise, yet leaves much to be desired. The decoding of the human genome has not led to a substantial number of new drug targets. Increased pharmaceutical R&D spending has not led to a proportionate increase in NMEs. Pharmaceutical industry is looking backwards to the golden age of phenotypic-based drug discovery and drug repurposing to ease the drug discovery bottleneck. Academia has recently become a vital contributor to the otherwise dwindling drug discovery pipeline by establishing industry-style, in-house high throughput drug screening centers to generate leads. In order to accelerate drug discovery, the NIH Roadmap program and the Eu-OpenScreen initiative have sought to increase the role of academia and foster collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical industry, in turn, has come to understand the depth of target biology, systems biology and pathobiology knowledge that resides in academia, and recognizes the need for close interaction and collaboration between the two institutions for better targets to pursue and to lower the attrition during efficacy and safety assessment phase of drug development. What we now see evolving is the much needed collaborative spirit between these two diverse institutions in closing this risk-reward gap as exemplified by a number of industry-academia collaborative agreements that are being put in place. With great many academic institutions becoming engaged in drug discovery research, the time is ripe to find ways to bridge the gap, and conquer the ‘valley of death’ in new drug lead discovery. Using the trend setting drug discovery initiatives instituted at the University of Kansas as an example, the presentation discusses the changing landscape at the pharma-academia interface, the role of academia in translational research, the guiding principles that define the two institutions, a win-win scenario for technology transfer, and proven ways to strengthen drug discovery partnerships between Pharma and Academia.