The newly retired Chief Executive Officer of Roche Pharmaceuticals Bill Burns today led calls for more public-private partnerships in the pharmaceutical industry at the launch of the Italian Institute of Technology's Drug Discovery and Development Unit (D3).
“Collaborations between industry and academia, such as the model employed here at D3, are crucial to the success of the Italian pharmaceutical industry”
"The key way to move forward in drug discovery and development is to have good interconnectivity", he told more than 100 industry leaders gathered in Genoa for the launch.
"No single institution is doing all of the right things, so partnerships are crucial to the development of innovative new medicines. The industry needs to harness science from hybrid groups like the D3, who are working in an inspired way to advance the discovery of new drugs in important therapeutic areas."
D3 brings together scientists with experience in industry and academia to discover new drugs in pain, inflammation and dementia. It recently received funding of €12 million from the Italian government to cover 70 staff for the next five years and is looking to partner with external collaborators to advance key projects.
The launch event, entitled PharmaFuture 2010, was co-sponsored by BioCentury and SciBx and is the first of a series of meetings highlighting promising partnerships in drug discovery. The event, which took place at D3's state-of-the-art research laboratories in Genoa, Italy, attracted a number of key speakers, including Sergio Dompé, President of Italy's pharmaceutical industry association, Farmindustria and Giovina Ruberti, the Innovative Medicines Initiative's representative for Italy.
Speaking at the event, Sergio Dompé encouraged local industry players to form collaborations to further drug discovery.
"Here in Italy we have extremely skilled scientists who have great ideas, but we face a challenge in getting new R&D projects off the ground," he told delegates. "Collaborations between industry and academia, such as the model employed here at D3, are crucial to the success of the Italian pharmaceutical industry".
In addition, team leaders from D3 outlined their groundbreaking research into the development of medicines for chronic disease conditions, including Alzheimer's disease.
Dr Daniele Piomelli, Scientific Director of D3 said "We very much appreciate the interest of potential partners in our efforts to build a new model that bridges the best of academia and industry. The call for more collaborations in the industry speaks to the D3 business model, which focuses on uniting the creativity and innovation of academia with the focused and results-oriented culture of the pharmaceutical industry".
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