Abstract:
The global pharmaceutical industry is adapting to a changing landscape caused by a number of pressures. This has driven global pharmaceutical companies into an era of large scale partnerships and alliances, with smaller biotech companies and universities being sources of innovative compounds. These changes are leading to opportunities for drug discovery groups, especially those with well-recognised skills and capabilities. New Zealand's nascent drug discovery and development industry needs to take this evolution into account if it is to prosper and grow. This thesis aims to explore the current state of the crisis and the drivers for it, analyse the industry response with emphasis on the factors required for successful partnerships between industry and academia. It is a further purpose of this thesis to suggest opportunities available to New Zealand (NZ) institutions involved in drug discovery and to recommend how early drug discovery capabilities within these institutions should be positioned for optimum benefit from such opportunities. Research was conducted through a systematic review of the literature followed by collection of primary data using semistructured interviews. Consensus drivers included increased competition from generics, increased regulatory hurdles, the changing venture capital environment, commercial biases in the drug discovery and development process, diminishing returns from 'me too' drugs, corporate culture, reimbursement uncertainty, an inability to predict clinical efficacy, and the rapidly evolving pace of biology. Consensus responses include doing less in-house basic research, partnering with academia, diversifying into biologics, expanding into emerging markets, increasing in licensing and acquisitions, and downsizing both human and capital resources. NZ can capitalise on the evolving landscape through continuing to engage with industry in traditional ways but also needs to be able to build scale in capabilities that are attractive to the global drug development industry. Policies to encourage large scale partnerships with industry through training young scientists in translational science while encouraging multidisciplinary research to build critical mass and may help to position NZ's drug discovery groups optimally. Findings from this research could provide the basis for forming pragmatic policy to guide NZ's drug discovery and development industry.
