The global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have achieved many significant milestones in innovative research and drug development in the past decade – including the broad adoption of immunotherapies and the introduction of the first generation of gene and cell therapies.
Historically, companies have relied on both internal and external sourcing of innovative and promising therapies. Internal teams led the clinical side of R&D, while business development teams worked to identify collaboration opportunities, including partnerships or licence agreements with other companies to build their pipelines. This approach has proven successful for many companies, but recent years have seen a significant shift in drug development to specialty areas including rare diseases. In this environment, companies are finding that traditional strategies for sourcing R&D innovation are often sub-optimal or no longer practical.
As we discuss in PMLiVE, with the transition to a more specialty-focused future, companies may need to modify and potentially replace established models in R&D and asset sourcing to reflect the unique considerations of targeting specialty therapeutic areas and the pace of innovation in clinical research and drug development to remain competitive and ensure success in the years ahead.