In an industry dominated by patents, proprietary data, and the race to get a first-in-class drug, the concept of open source drug development once seemed like an impossible dream. Yet as traditional pharma continues to leave many global health needs unaddressed—particularly for diseases affecting low and middle income countries1,2—the open source model has evolved from idealistic theory to pragmatic reality. In this post, I’ll lead us through how open source drug development has overcome key obstacles of funding and intellectual property (IP) management to deliver real-world solutions.
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The business of health: research and funding from academia to big pharma
In a world in which the probability of clinical success is just 10%-20% for new medicines, pharmaceutical multinationals increasingly turn to academia and biotech as a source of “de-risked” technology for their pipelines. This exchange of ideas, equity and capital depends on firm relationships between entities having apparently divergent interests: from not-for-profit research to international commerce.
As a former pharma contract negotiator, I spent much of my past life attempting to find common ground with university researchers and biotech leadership teams. In 2021, I had the privilege of returning to academia in the UK after a prolonged hiatus, and – more recently – of working with start-ups. In this blog, I will comment on some of the surprising trends I have observed in how pharma, biotech and academics balance the conduct of meaningful research with the requirements of their respective sectors. The views herein are entirely my own.
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