Discussion

The contraction in research within Pharma has seen a renaissance in drug discovery within the academic setting. Often, groups grow organically from academic research laboratories, exploiting a particular area of novel biology or new technology. However, increasingly new groups driven by industrial staff are emerging with demonstrable expertise in the delivery of medicines.

As part of a strategic review by Cancer Research UK, the Drug Discovery team at the Manchester Institute was established to translate novel research from the Manchester cancer research community into drug discovery programmes. However, to fully achieve this ambition with limited resource, a number of technical hurdles must be overcome. Encompassing aspects such as hit finding and target validation, these challenges are not unique to our team but offer opportunities to deliver innovative solutions. In this presentation we will describe novel collaborative strategies from our portfolio, to illustrate the approaches we have taken to address these issues.