What makes a drug discovery consortium successful?

Consortia are enabling drug discovery in areas that individual organizations are unable to support alone because of the high risk or the need to pool information. This article discusses desirable features that can underpin the success of such consortia.

In the past 15 years, large pharma companies have transitioned from an internally focused research model to community-sourcing, collaborative approaches that are now increasingly driving innovation in drug discovery. Such collaborations often begin as one-to-one relationships with a partner organization that performs a high-risk step, such as target validation or lead discovery. In some areas, this type of collaboration has subsequently matured into larger consortia, as increasing numbers of pharma companies have become comfortable with sharing risks, costs and opportunities with each other, as well as with academic groups, thereby pooling funds and resources and also accessing external funding.

Such consortia can tackle challenges in drug discovery that present too high a risk for individual organizations to undertake, and/or that require access to levels of information or resources that are beyond those of any individual organization. With many such consortia now active — ranging in scale from multiple groups that are part of the European Innovative Medicines Initiative to disease-specific collaborations catalysed by a single charity — there is both growing experience and interest in the factors that contribute to their success or failure. Here, we discuss such factors for consortia focused on drug discovery. Continue the Nature review to learn more

Nature.com – nature reviews drug discovery Peter B. Simpson & Graeme F. Wilkinson