Acceleration and Innovation in Drug Discovery Through Academic Collaboration
Timothy Hemesath,
Director, Biotherapeutics Site Biology and Operations Lead, Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI),
Pfizer
The Pfizer Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI) is a pioneering approach to drug discovery research and development. Through formalizing a mechanism for collaborating with academic medical centers, foundations, and government laboratories to accelerate the discovery and development of medicines for patients in need of new therapies, CTI is changing the way drug discovery is pursued. Four CTI sites are currently collaborating with 28 leading academic medical centers and the National Institutes of Health in the US, along with six disease-focused charitable foundations, to translate promising early scientific insights into clinical drug candidates. Pre-proposals submitted from academic scientists at participating institutions are competitively evaluated for scientific merit, novelty of therapeutic hypothesis and tractability of development objectives. A Joint Steering Committee made up of CTI and academic scientists shares program decision-making responsibilities. Ideas that are endorsed by the committee to move forward as research collaborations are co-written by an academic and a CTI scientist and, once initiated, are guided by those individuals as co-Project Leaders. Research deliverables, projected timelines and criteria for project milestones are captured and used to guide the work of the team. Bench scientists from the academic and industry team are expected to share data in an open and transparent fashion and are encouraged to perform experiments as needed in one another’s laboratories. Publication rights and co-development of intellectual property are key features of the collaborative agreement. CTI collaborations have resulted in a number of clinical candidate molecules. CTI is committed to bringing together cutting-edge academic and industry resources to develop medicines faster and more efficiently for longstanding clinical challenges such as Alzheimer’s Disease, cancer, autoimmune disorders and more.
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