Academic CRO/Industrial Collaborations in Drug Discovery

Nonprofit Pharma

Walter H. Moos & Krishna Kodukula
Vice President Biosciences Division SRI International 333 Ravenswood Avenue Menlo Park, CA 94025 USA
Executive Director Biosciences Division SRI International 140 Research Drive Harrisonburg, VA 22802 USA

Abstract:

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) play an increasingly important role providing solutions to the significant challenges faced today by both large pharmaceutical and smaller biotechnology companies, not to mention academia. NPOs chartered for the public benefit are common in the USA and in selected other parts of the world.  SRI International, originally founded as the Stanford Research Institute in 1946, is one of the largest and most successful independent NPOs. To provide a perspective on NPO business models, a number of SRI case studies spanning a broad range of technical and business initiatives will be summarized, including basic and contract research, discovery and development of new drugs and biologics, pharmaceutical and biotech R&D and CRO services, technology pivots, company spin-ins and spin-outs, and the creation of new NPOs.  How to bridge the NIH “Valley of Death” and how to navigate the FDA “Critical Path” will be discussed.  The talk will conclude with lessons learned about collaborations and routes to commercialization, along with food for thought for bioscience companies and outsourcing participants. (For more detail, see Moos and Mirsalis, Drug Dev. Res. 2009, 70:461–471.)