Innovative partnerships for medicines research: How is the landscape evolving? Highlights from the Society for Medicines Research Symposium

The discovery and development of new drugs to treat many of society's most complex and inadequately treated diseases remains a lengthy, high-risk and high-cost endeavor. R&D costs continue to increase, while the number of new drug launches is failing to improve. This is prompting many in the research community to question the long-term viability of current drug discovery and development models. The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the number of new institutes being established that aim to improve the efficiency and success rates of drug discovery and development, by deploying innovative new business models. Central to the mission of these organizations is to identify improved routes for translation of novel preclinical research findings into more successful clinical outcomes. A panel of experts from academia, industry and charities shared their views on how these institutes have developed and discussed how successful they have been in addressing some of these challenges. The many innovative new models of drug discovery and development, together with some of the experiences, lessons learned and future strategies were also highlighted. This Society for Medicines Research symposium was held at the Babraham Research Campus, Cambridge, and hosted by Medlmmune.