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Public–private partnerships are collaborations between publicly funded organizations such as academic institutions and for-profit organizations such as pharmaceutical companies. They are often set up to benefit from complementary assets of each party, such as expertise in disease biology in academic institutions and expertise and financial resources for clinical development in companies.
Drug discovery is time-consuming and full of blind alleys. Pharmaceutical rivals are cooperating in the early stages to accelerate and improve the efficiency of the process.
Lessons from the US Biodefense program should inform international efforts to build a medical countermeasure enterprise for emerging infectious diseases.
