Open Innovation Can Lead to Faster Drug Creation
Faster drug creation and swifter publication of research results can be achieved by providing academics with tools and information in the public domain. That’s the view of the Director of Academic Liaison for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
Malcolm Skingle was talking with The Information Daily at a recent cancer research event in the UK. He discussed how open innovation can benefit the entire scientific community.
During the interview, Skingle touched on important collaborations between academia and drug companies such as “The Structural Genomics Consortium”, an alliance between Oxford and Toronto Universities that is funded by eight pharmaceutical companies and the Wellcome Trust. Its purpose is to carry out basic science relevant to drug discovery.
“It’s all about getting information and tools out there into the public domain, so that other people can actually use them”, said Skingle. “And it’s not altruistic, the reason we’re pushing the science out is because people start working on things, and then you bring more science back into your own organisation.”
Pushing the Boundaries
Skingle believes that open innovation will push the boundaries of science and highlighted how GlaxoSmithKline opens up some of its platform technologies to academic researchers. He says it encourages them to propel their own ideas and research along the company’s pharmaceutical pipeline until the point where it could be beneficial for GlaxoSmithKline to participate.
“It’s a real win-win, because it’s publication for the academic, potential milestones and royalty streams if it goes all the way”.
To find out more about GSK’s approach to open innovation discovery, check out the Discovery Fast Track competition, designed to turn academic research into new medicines.
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