GMEC Drug Discovery Working Group (completed)

The environment for early drug discovery is undergoing significant change, with many pharmaceutical companies now aspiring to access up to 50% of their development compounds externally from biotechology companies and academia. This provides significant opportunities to develop academic drug discovery activities. Historically, the challenge of converting academic research into drug discovery projects has been hampered by lack of appropriate expertise, basic tools and paucity of funding. Therefore, to optimise academic efforts in this arena there is a strong desire to see partnerships develop that bring different skills to these discovery programmes. The GMEC Drug Discovery Working Group aimed to address these issues to encourage the efficient translation of drug discovery from academia.