Affordable Medicines

Humanity’s need for new medicines continues to grow unabated, yet our traditional systems for discovering new drugs are inefficient, costly and have high failure rates, with less than 1% of efforts reaching the market.

Drug development is risky and expensive, and some argue that the competitive nature of early-stage research, within academia and industry, means efforts are often duplicated and result in little or no dissemination of knowledge.

However, efforts are underway to establish new, ‘open innovation’ models of drug discovery as an alternative to the traditional closed model of research and development (R&D). These can range from limited, peer-to-peer partnerships through to wide-ranging, open source initiatives, and are beginning to involve groups outside academia and industry, such as patient organisations and charities. But the economic and efficiency benefits of such initiatives are as yet unclear, with little data available with which to inform strategic decisions and policy making.

Our interdisciplinary team draws on both academic and industry expertise, from fields including neuroscience, health economics, development pathways, pharmaceutical pricing, intellectual property and strategic partnerships. We will analyse different R&D models, focusing on both closed and open systems of innovation, to establish answers to the following questions:

• What are the R&D models being practised and considered for the future?
• Who are the stakeholders in drug discovery and what are their roles? How are these contributors changing?
• Are there alternatives to conventional intellectual property (IP) protection?
• What are the economic benefits of different R&D models, for all stakeholders?
• What are the scientific and societal benefits of these new models?

Following our analysis and exploration of specific case studies, we will develop a range of models illustrating current and potential approaches to R&D, considering issues such as drivers of costs, intellectual property, market exclusivity and financial benefits for stakeholders. We will also create a flexible, cost-modelling tool that enables different parties to generate estimates of economic benefits for different stages of drug discovery R&D models.