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Review
. 2017 Dec;38(12):1052-1060.
doi: 10.1016/j.tips.2017.10.003. Epub 2017 Oct 27.

The Academic-Industrial Complexity: Failure to Launch

Leonard A Levin  1 , Francine Behar-Cohen  2
Affiliations
Review

The Academic-Industrial Complexity: Failure to Launch

Leonard A Levin et al. Trends Pharmacol Sci. 2017 Dec.

Abstract

The pharmaceutical industry has long known that ∼80% of the results of academic laboratories cannot be reproduced when repeated in industry laboratories. Yet academic investigators are typically unaware of this problem, which severely impedes the drug development process. This academic-industrial complication is not one of deception, but rather a complex issue related to how scientific research is carried out and translated in strikingly different enterprises. This Opinion describes the reasons for inconsistencies between academic and industrial laboratories and what can be done to repair this failure of translation.

Keywords: bench to bedside; drug development; translational failure.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare the following financial relationships:

LAL – Consultant to Aerie, Inotek, Quark, Regenera, and Teva.

FBC – Consultant to Bayer,, Quark, Teva, Allergan, Eyevensys, Novartis, Thrombogenics, Logitec, Genentech, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Steba Biotech, Solid Drug Development.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The relations between academic institutions (light blue), industry (light green), start-up companies (gray), and contract research organizations (CRO; dark pink) in the drug development process, which is depicted as proceeding from the bottom to the top. Green plus signs (+) represent areas of strengths; red minus signs (−) represent areas of weaknesses or challenges.
Figure 2
Figure 2
A proposed model for improving interactions among academic institutions (light blue), industry (light green), and start-up companies (gray) in the drug development process, with the goal of addressing the problems identified in the article.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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