DECEMBER 2023LIFE SCIENCES REVIEW8IN MY OPINIONBy Steven Cohen, Executive Director, Internal Medicine, Search & Evaluation & Translational Medicine, Daiichi Sankyo, Inc.here have been multiple ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic for drug development. Some of these have been well-publicized, most notably the delay of clinical trials, which was largely due to the potential exposure of volunteers, patients, and staff to the virus. Additionally, the widespread supply chain interruptions that are discussed frequently in the lay press also affected drugs and other clinical trial supplies. However, there is an area of drug development affected by the pandemic that has not received much attention. That is the decrease in interaction among people in academia, biotech, and pharma that has traditionally yielded substantial progress in target and drug discovery as well as in advancing compounds through the various stages of development. There are respective diverse merits to universities, biotechs, and pharma where each may complement the other to enhance the various stages of R&D, from first-in-man studies, through proof of mechanism and proof of concept, and even later stages of development and post-registration trials. The relative academic freedom and small group structures intrinsic to universities and biotech may have advantages for a more streamlined process and quick decision-making, whether that is to further explore a novel mechanism or to terminate a project. Clearly though, once it is decided that a specific target or mechanism is worthy of further experimentation, the collaboration of academia, biotech, and pharma is important to advancing a program expeditiously, with each site utilizing their respective strengths. For example, universities have excellent scientists, but typically turn to medicinal chemists, pharmacologists, and toxicologists working in pharma to further evaluate a compound. Additionally, pharma has more resources to invest in promising targets than most universities and small biotech companies. And if a compound is advanced to clinical trials, the translational medicine and clinical trialists readily available in pharma are experienced in testing these compounds for safety and TTHE VITAL INTERSECTION OF ACADEMIA, BIOTECH, AND PHARMA IN PRODUCING MEDICAL THERAPIES
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