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UK academic drug discovery

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 13, pages 15–16 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Survey and analysis

Research structures, capabilities and aims. Most UK groups working in drug discovery are traditional academic research groups (87%) rather than dedicated centres (13%), and have been established for >7 years. The majority have <20 researchers, with >50% holding a Ph.D. Only 16% were involved in multi-university collaborations, and only 40% of research directors had >5 years of industry experience (Supplementary information S2 (box); figures 1–10).

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Figure 1: Drug discovery research in UK academic groups compared with US academic groups and the pharmaceutical industry.
Figure 2: Funding sources for academic drug discovery.

References

  1. Frye, S. et al. US academic drug discovery. Nature Rev. Drug Discov. 10, 409–410 (2011).

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  2. Rathi, A. Removing boundaries. RSC News 10–11 (Jan 2013).

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the survey participants and acknowledge the help received from Thomson Reuters Life Sciences to run and analyse the survey, and in supplying comparative industry data.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cathy Tralau-Stewart is at Ginkgo Drug Discovery Consulting, San Mateo, California 94404, USA.,

    Cathy Tralau-Stewart

  2. Caroline M.R. Low is a Computational Drug Design Consultant, Dulwich, London SE21 8LS, UK.,

    Caroline M. R. Low

  3. Nicola Marlin is at Thomson Reuters, Hatton Garden, London EC1N 8JS, UK.,

    Nicola Marlin

Authors
  1. Cathy Tralau-Stewart
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  2. Caroline M. R. Low
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  3. Nicola Marlin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cathy Tralau-Stewart.

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Competing interests

C.T.-S. and C.L. act as consultants to academia, biotechnology companies and pharmaceutical companies.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information S1 (box)

Academic Drug Discovery Study (PDF 742 kb)

Supplementary information S2 (box)

Survey methods and supplementary data (PDF 2798 kb)

PowerPoint slides

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Cite this article

Tralau-Stewart, C., Low, C. & Marlin, N. UK academic drug discovery. Nat Rev Drug Discov 13, 15–16 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd4200

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