A new alliance has been set up to strengthen the international academic and not-for-profit drug discovery and commercialisation network and accelerate the translation of basic research into new drugs.
The Global Alliance of Drug Discovery and Development Centres (GADDDC) brings together the Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) in Canada, Germany’s Lead Discovery Centre (LDC), The Scripps Research Institute, Scripps Florida, The Centre for Drug Design and Discovery at KU Leuven in Belgium, Medical Research Council Technology Ltd, UK and Cancer Research Technology, UK.
These are all bodies that have pioneered new approaches to getting basic research out of academe and shaping it into drug programmes that will fit into the bottom end of pharmaceutical companies’ development pipelines. They all have broad project portfolios in order to mitigate risk and have the capabilities to manage projects to the standards expected by industry.
Each of the member organisations of GADDDC is a fully integrated translational centre capable of advancing drug discovery projects along the value chain from an idea to a candidate drug molecule with preclinical proof of concept. In total the six represent almost 400 drug development experts, who are in turn collaborating with tens of thousands of academic scientists around the world.
De-risking publically-funded research
The growing imperative to shape academic research into commercialisable programmes has spawned a multitude of translational research initiatives around the world that aim to de-risk discoveries generated by publically-funded research, advancing them to the point where they will attract private investment capital.
However, until now these have for the most part worked in isolation of each other, noted Karimah Es Sabar, President and CEO of CDRD. “The alliance will be a powerful vehicle in bringing such organisations together, leveraging one another’s strengths and ultimately making for a much more effective global research environment,” Sabar said.
The six founders will not undertake any joint funding of projects but they will further professionalise the activity of bridging the gap between basic research and commercial projects, by developing standards and performance measurements, sharing best practice, expertise and resources, and collaborating on specific projects.
More patents and spin-offs
Alongside increasing the rate and speed of translation, it is hoped the quality improvements this brings will result in more patents and spin-offs, and more risk-sharing collaborations with pharma and biotech companies, with the end result of reducing attrition rates in clinical development and getting more drugs to market.
At the same time GADDDC intends to promote knowledge transfer into academia, increasing understanding of the pharma industry’s requirements and thus maximising the economic returns from publically-funded health research.
The shared objectives make collaborating rather than competing the obvious way forward, according to Mike Johnson, MRC Technology’s Director of Corporate Partnerships. “I hope that by working together we can move research from the lab bench to the patient faster and more effectively,” he said.
Cancer Research Technology (CRT) the technology transfer arm of the research charity Cancer Research UK is the member organisation that has the most experience to date of international collaborations, working with scientists in the US, Australia and mainland Europe, as well as the academics funded by the charity in the UK. Keith Blundy, CEO of CRT said, “This alliance fits perfectly with our aim to grow this activity, to share our knowledge and to learn from others.”
Overall, GADDDC promises to become a significant source of innovation for the biopharmaceutical industry, with over 165 projects currently in the hands of its members.
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