It Takes a Village to Develop a Safe and Efficacious New Therapeutic Agent Truly Responding to Patient Needs.

March 19, 2019

Since 2016, we have been diligently building bridges between Boston and European Biotechnologies as a way of accelerating the advent of new treatments in response to patient’s needs, globally. Collaboration is becoming an increasingly important component in the next stage of biotechnology’s evolution. There are at least three fundamental reasons:

1)   No single technology is likely to generate all the drug innovations required to treat the complex range of diseases that constitute unmet medical needs in our societies.

2)   No single company or type of company can possibly possess all the answers,

3)   The risky nature of the economics of biotechnology is such that no single region can achieve results on its own.

Our Mission: an exclusive, Trans-Atlantic Bridge designed to foster innovative synergies between biotech and pharma companies, healthcare-focused cities and regional clusters, institutional, philanthropic and strategic investors.

Launched in 2017 as the Boston/Paris Biotechnology Summit, with the intention to spark projects, their financing, and strategic deals in order to solve unmet medical needs and globally improve the lives of patients. The central theme of the first edition was an introduction to the biotechnology ecosystems in Boston and Paris, which were also highlighted in terms of innovation and leadership. The Summit®’s framework for its 2018 edition was “from the promise of raising capital to the reality of clinical trials” and featured speakers from the academic, biotech, investor, legal/regulatory and pharma worlds. A CEO “pitching session” was introduced. The objective of the third edition will be to further ensure that the Summit® provides an efficient and cost-effective forum that will add value for the companies which take part. We aim to achieve this by maintaining a rich hand-crafted content, maintaining its “human size” and strategically expanding this US-based Summit® to broader European participation.

A recent review in the New England Journal of Medicine focused on three diseases — cystic fibrosis, multiple myeloma, and type 1 diabetes mellitus — to illustrate how collaborations between academic institutions, foundations and industrial partners have evolved in order to address the therapeutic challenges of these conditions, with the “Patient” consistently at the heart of the collaborative model. The remarkable scientific progress achieved in the biotech industry must be matched by progress in developing business models that are appropriate to the industry. Other references listed below are good core reading and food for thought

REFERENCES:

  1. Gautam A. The changing model of Big Pharma: impact of key trends. Drug Discovery Today 2016; 21: 379-384.
  2. Gersdorf Th. et al. Demystifying Academia-Industry Collaboration. Nature Review Drug Discovery, Advance Online Publication 2019.
  3. Gower JM. Evolving role of collaboration in biotechnology. Bioentrepreneur 1998; 16: 31-32.
  4. Grant A. Give & Take: Why helping others drives our success. Penguin Books, 2014.
  5. HI-PRECIMED Project (France) https://www.usposts.net/2018/09/precision-medicine-cap-digital-and-medicen-team-up-with-oncodesign-servier-and-intersystems-on-hu-precimed-project/
  6. Johnson D. Collaboration is the key to innovation in biotechnology. BioProcess International 10.14.2016.
  7. Ramsey BW, Nepom GT, Lonial S. Academic, Foundation and Industry collaboration in finding new therapies. New England Journal of Medicine 2017; 376: 1762-9.
  8. PharmaVoice. 2019 Year in Review. 10 Trends. Nov/Dec. 2018; 18: 10 [Special Issue].
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