Discussion

Society desperately needs new medicines. However, the rate at which new drugs are being discovered has flatlined despite massive investments - arguably the result of a broken model. The lack of understanding of human pathophysiology, the secretive behaviour and over-protection (patents) are all chokepoints that can be addressed through the establishment of a pre-competitive framework, such as the SGC. Although counterintuitive for many, the SGC’s open access model has already unveiled new target families at an unprecedented speed, as seen in the case of bromodomains taking less than 3 years between the discovery of an inhibitor and first-in-man trails . Open access also enables the participation of patient and disease foundations in early drug discovery activities, particularly for ‘untreatable’ and rare diseases. Crowdsourcing, transparency and speed are all features of a new model with the real potential to accelerate affordable and pioneer treatments for the future generations.