Over the past decade, the rate of biomarker discovery has accelerated considerably thanks to the development of new methods such as advanced mass spectrometry techniques.  However, the effort dedicated to confirming the value of these newly discovered biomarkers has remained insufficient. Biomarker qualification (i.e. the process of confirming the predictive value of a biomarker candidate) usually requires access to a large population of patients representing the full spectrum of disease stages encountered in every day medical practice.  While a few large organizations can muster the resources necessary to assemble such large patient samples, most biomarker qualification efforts require close collaboration between multiple stakeholders.  Hence, the gap in biomarker qualification can only be eliminated by promoting the collaboration of academia, the industry, and non-profit organization through pre-competitive initiatives (e.g. ADNI, PPMI, FNIH Biomarker Consortium).