How Academia, Industry, Government, & Nonprofit Organizations Advance Science

Discussions of partnering are often framed in terms of collaborations between small biotechs on the one hand and large pharmaceutical companies on the other. Yet, the biopharma ecosystem is more extensive and prosperous than just these two groups alone. This panel sought to highlight how academic labs, industry service providers, government departments, philanthropic organizations, and trade organizations play essential roles in advancing the future of medicine.

Collaboration with public actors is essential to ensure therapy development for areas like orphan diseases or the defense industry, where an immediate commercial market is too small to attract private investment. These partnerships help universities develop innovative research where traditional commercial partnerships do not exist.

Non-profits also drive biopharma innovation and are responsible for significant investments in fundamental science. In the United States, the non-profit sector currently provides 15% of foundational research funding and 5% of R&D funding, a proportion greater than that of America’s vast university sector. Indeed, more than half of all foundational research is funded by non-profits or the federal government, compared to less than a third funded by private industry.

Huseyin Mehmet, Executive Director of New Ventures at UMass Chan Medical School, explained how adopting industry-style strategies helped his university labs commercialize their innovations. He urged universities to rapidly reply to potential partners' inquiries; sign confidential disclosure agreements in less than 24 hours; work closely with industry actors and venture capitalists; and reinvest their gains from successful projects to fund riskier research. By adopting similar strategies, university labs can retain their place as innovation hubs in the broader biopharma ecosystem.