Current Pharma R&D Model ‘Untenable’ – Academic Collaboration the Future of Drug Innovation

Wednesday 15 May 2013, Amsterdam

A   growing   emphasis   on   academic   and   non-profit   organisation   partnerships   could  rescue   the pharmaceutical  industry  from  the  redundancy  of  an  inefficient  R&D  model  and  plug  the  so-called “innovation gap”, states a new report from research and consulting our firm.

The company’s new report argues that collaboration in drug development benefit’s both parties, with academia constantly looking for sources of research funding– particularly as governments cut the amount of aid dedicated to federally-funded research – while the pharmaceutical industry would gain a partner to share in the high risks and substantial costs of bringing new medicines to market.

“The current R&D paradigm is bloated, duplicative, expensive, and in the long run, untenable,” says our Healthcare Industry Dynamics Team Analyst, Adam Dion.

“There is a growing consensus in the industry that these challenges must be met collectively by bringing together public, private and government organizations to create multi-lateral collaborations to drive the next wave of scientific discovery.”

Dion explains that the dearth of innovative drugs on the current pharmaceutical landscape is at least partly the result of wasteful R&D activity. 2012 may have boasted the highest number of FDA drug approvals since 1996, but many of these were for “me-too” drugs or medications aimed at niche therapy areas.

“In the past, the big got bigger, as large pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, Merck, GSK and AstraZeneca  relied  on  organic  growth,  getting  fat  and  happy  on  the  success  of  their respective blockbuster drugs,” says Dion.

“However, many of the same companies did not put in place strategies to drive innovation into the future or manage the consequences of the patent cliff.

“Many industry participants are now considering a move from an old and inflexible R&D paradigm to a more collaborative and open ecosystem that fosters creativity and information sharing – a substantial cultural shift for an industry with a high level of reluctance to share anything.”

Greater co-operation between rival drug companies and non-profit organisations may be a difficult pill for B to swallow, states the analyst, but this approach may ultimately prove advantageous in the long-run.

This  report  examines  the  terms,  platform  technologies,  and  deal  rationale  of  25  pharma-academic alliances from 2012–2013.

This  report  was  built  using  data  and  information  sourced  from  proprietary  databases,  primary  andsecondary research, and in-house analysis conducted by GlobalData’s team of industry experts.