A new alliance aims to boost the success of translating biomedical research from academia into clinical therapies. The Global Alliance of Leading Drug Discovery and Development Centers brings together organizations from Canada, the US and Europe to accelerate the path from early-stage research to commercial products. The aim is to pool translational research centers' assets and to position the alliance as an optimal partner for international funding opportunities and collaboration with the biotech and pharma industries.

Six academic partners spread across Canada, Europe and the US have come together to boost translational biomedical research. Credit: Thinkstock

“We have all the divisions that would exist in a big pharma,” says Karimah Es Sabar, founding chair of the alliance and president and CEO of the Vancouver, Canada–based Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD). In addition to CDRD, founding members are Lead Discovery Center (LDC), of Dortmund, Germany, The Scripps Translational Science Institute, in Jupiter, Florida, The Leuven, Belgium–based Centre for Drug Design and Discovery, and the Medical Research Council Technology and Cancer Research Technology, both in London.

All members have a strong track record of startup creation and partnering with drug developers. Es Sabar says alliance members have collectively founded more than 30 companies and taken more than 20 drugs to market already. “We can do all the work required to make projects investible,” she says. “And we can do it in the most efficient way.”

A steering committee with a representative from each participating organization manages the alliance. The group will provide funding for academic projects as well as “collaboration with pharma-seasoned experts who have switched sides,” says LDC spokesman Thomas Hegendörfer. The most promising collaborations will be expanded to include commercial partners. Other services include project management, screening, pharmacology, medicinal infrastructure and incubator services.

The alliance already boasts “400 experienced drug developers collaborating with tens of thousands of academic scientists” says a press release, all working on “over 165 highly innovative therapeutic products.” The priority will be academic innovations, but the group is also open to working with industry on a range of projects, including repurposing drugs to a new indication. The group will accept new organizations as members. To be considered, an organization must have an overall commitment to advance drug discovery towards commercialization, be closely aligned with academic inventors and be recognized by industry as a partner of choice. Intellectual property will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

“As industry focuses less on basic research, we are likely to see a rise in such alliances and partnerships,” says Robert Schneider, associate director of translational cancer research at the New York University Cancer Institute in New York and a co-founder of biotech ImClone Systems (now part of Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly).

“New alliances like this are good things that bring new frameworks and collaboration,” says Harry Glorikian, founder and principal of Cambridge, Massachusetts–based life sciences consulting firm Scientia Advisors, “but they are not transformative”. Radical innovations such as precompetitive data sharing and open innovation are needed to truly ignite a new wave of innovation in pharma,” he says. “So far, we are only seeing small efforts at that.”

Alliance members are more optimistic. “This consortium represents a new age in collaborative drug discovery on a truly global scale,” says Justin Bryans, director of drug discovery at the Medical Research Council Technology. He describes it as “a dynamic network allowing free flow of ideas, information, expertise and resources.”