After years of reduced government funding and a worsening economy, drugmakers and universities are edging still closer in the form of new deals that involve academic and industry scientists working together to design projects. And as universities gain access to funding, pharma believes the arrangements yield more accountability.
The end result is a new breed of alliances in which these scientists jointly come up with project proposals, divvy up the labwork, and patent and publish their results, writes Chemical & Engineering News, which takes a lengthy look at the topic and declares that the goal is to accelerate the move from basic biology to drug targets and, ultimately, medicines.
"The approach 20 years ago was pharma gives a chunk of change, and then they have the rights to license any discoveries," Laurie Glimcher, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a professor of immunology at Harvard School of Public Health, tells C&E. "I don't think that really works anymore. It has become apparent to many people in the private sector and the academic sector that closer ties between industry and academia are the wave of the future."
In September 2007, Merck became the first drugmaker to establish a broader R&D alliance with an academic institution when it announced an agreement to conduct research into oncology topics and central nervous system disorders with Harvard Med School. The initial deal provided six Harvard labs with funding. And because Merck's Boston R&D site is within walking distance of Harvard, researchers from both sides have ready access to one another's labs, C&E writes.
AstraZeneca is taking different approaches, even with the same institution. The drugmaker signed two separate deals with Columbia University for different levels of involvement. Under the first deal, signed in June, their collaboration has three goals: to elucidate the biology and find promising targets in diabetes and obesity, to establish clinical protocols that provide guidance about whether a drug is working, and to understand specific drug mechanisms in more detail. In a second pact covering neurology, Columbia looks for new avenues to treat depression, while AstraZeneca is responsible for providing molecules that can test pathways discovered by Columbia.
Pfizer, meanwhile, is evolving an existing relationship with Washington University. The two organizations established ties more than 20 years ago, but now university scientists across a range of disciplines make short research proposals related to immunology and inflammation, which are reviewed by a joint steering committee cochaired by Karen Seibert, vp of Pfizer's research labs in St. Louis and Jeff Gordon, director of Washington University's Center for Genome Sciences.
The academic researchers are then paired with Pfizer scientists to write a full proposal. After considering the full proposals, the steering committee chooses which will get funds. Scientists from industry and academia then work as a team to complete the projects, with free access to the resources at their respective organizations.
""It's an evolution away from the traditional funding paradigm toward what I view as a truly collaborative agreement," Seibert tells C&E. "There is complete openness - no walls, no barriers. The ideas develop collaboratively, and the focus often changes when our scientists come together to the table."
Not everyone is thrilled with these arrangements, though. Hector DeLuca, a biochemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, concedes that drugmakers can be an important source of funding, but thinks a better way to manage industry funding is with the traditional model: Industry pays for research, stands back, and then has first right of refusal on any discoveries produced.
"I am always hesitant to form an alliance like that because there's a difference in goals," he tells C&E says, adding that, sometimes, companies profess openness, but don't want work published for intellectual property reasons or because they fear regulatory repercussions down the road. "There are a lot of restrictions with industry that I don't like to see in the academic world. The problem is, we can't support the academic world anymore."
7 Comments
Like the headline Ed.
My advice to Academia - if you have a brain don't trust Big Pharma!
This has been coming for a while and is part of Pharma's spreading of the risk and costs of drug discovery and development.
Discovery under this model will still be coming out NIH research grants. Academia will then be doing early toxicology and human phase I and early phase II in collaboration with NIH and via NIH funding. This saves pharma from investing in so much early work that doesn't pan out. Big pharma will then have dibs to come in and cherry pick the best for future development.
Just look at the companies involved in the science board at NIH and what's been going on with NIH / Industry / and even The Reagan Udall drug development institute. Plus the use of datamining of FDA safety data to promote genetic tests, e.g. Crestor. Gee I wonder what drugs that are now out there cause stroke, heart attacks, and decreased mortality due to cardiovascular inflammation, especially in at risk populations or even children who might not otherwise be at risk.
An FDA Reviewer
Indeed, this was in the cards, and is the kind of alliance that "sounds good" initially and appears to be profit-making for both sides (yes, universities care about profits too, and especially right now).
When industry and university become business partners, there are, indeed, a lot of good things that can happen. But all the issues that have been discussed here re: conflicts of commitment, principle, and transparency come into play. Big time.
In my mind, this is definitely not good. The two have been too cozy for a long time and such a movement will make it worse.
Is it about spreading the risk are seeking the best brains for the challenge of finding new drugs? Statement "goal is to accelerate the move from basic biology to drug targets and, ultimately, medicines" sounds reasonable that would want collaborations between academia and industry as the different focus' and expertise’s needed to translate knowledge in to drugs. If these take the form of "for profit" Alliances that are negotiated agreements between parties for mutual benefit so should not have the conflicts of interest mantra that gets over play on this site because they are established relationships.
Most academics don't understand much of the drug development process so should welcome interaction with those who can help guide them how their work can be made useful. UWs DeLuca wants the money and "academic freedom" without any direction that generally will lead to no where practical unless someone comes in to redirect or pick up the research to a meaningful objective.
To find new drugs you need a target. Those targets have already been coming out of academia as well as from industry itself. Including understanding mechanisms of toxicities with older drugs, e.g. hepatotoxicity/hepatitis?.
There is a clear need for industry and academia to work together, however it should not come at the expense of academia or the public who then is paying for early development.
No wonder Dr. Laurie Glimcher is for closer ties with pharma, she DOES sit on the Board of Directors of Bristol-Myers Squibb, just to assure everyone knows where her head is.