Abstract

Successful Examples of Commercialising Academic Drug Discovery Projects

Patrick Chaltin, Director, K U Leuven Research & Development

The exact percentage of drugs that find their origin within academic research remains a question and is subject of heavy debate. A fact is that this is difficult to measure because of the heterogeneity of academic discoveries and associated potential commercialisation routes. Examples show that there are many different ways by which academic research can form the basis and/or contributes to the discovery and development of new therapies (e.g. product discovery, new use of an existing product, identification of mechanism of action of a product, etc.). They also show that every therapy has its own interesting “story” whereby a variety of commercialisation methods are used, going from licensing, over collaborative research to spin-off creation. Recently, translational drug discovery centers have taken up the challenge to increase the translation of innovative academic research and deliver drugs for diseases with an unmet medical need. Examples of early success stories from the Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3) of KU Leuven show the promise of this model. They also confirm that drug discovery is a collaborative multi-disciplinary effort requiring an interplay between all parties in the eco-system.