From lab to impact: why industry partnerships matter for researchers

Working with industry partners can accelerate the application of research, expand its scope, and create impact in both science and society.

Why industry-academia collaboration works

Companies in the life sciences industry face immense hurdles on their path to commercial success and are challenged by long development times, patent expiry, and increasing R&D complexity and cost (e.g. the number of new drugs for every billion dollars of R&D has dropped about 80-fold since 1950).

These companies need to continuously innovate in order to secure a competitive product pipeline. Collaboration with academic research groups provides access to highly skilled talent, specialised expertise and state-of-the-art equipment and facilities. For example, new animal models, patient databases and other unique infrastructure such as human tissue banks provide unique opportunities for the validation of identified targets and pathways.

Industry brings a strong focus on translation, scalability and market fit, while academic partners often work on exploratory and disruptive research. Combining these perspectives can lead to more impactful innovation. Leveraging this unique environment allows life sciences companies to diversify their drug and technology portfolio with reduced internal resource burden and the potential for strategic portfolio expansion. Furthermore, collaborations with leading scientists can strenghten the company’s innovation strategy and signal scientific credibility to investors and other stakeholders. These partnerships also help build trusted relationships with key opinion leaders who may support future adoption.

Mutual benefits of cross-sector collaboration

Academic scientists are under increasing pressure to obtain funding from external sources. Collaboration with industry provides several interesting alternatives to finance your research, ranging from fee-for-service to shared research projects. Working with industry creates opportunities to develop solutions for real-life problems and bring scientific insights closer towards application. Seeing research translated into tools that address unmet clinical needs and benefit patients can be highly rewarding, and a productive partnerships with commercial organisations can often accelerate this process.

Additionally, life sciences companies offer their own specific expertise, ranging from market intelligence to high-throughput technologies, that can help you identify new problems to tackle and speed up your research endeavours. Lastly, successful collaboration demonstrates your capacity to drive innovation across sectors, bring about a positive change for society, and work effectively beyond the academic environment, which are all qualities increasingly valued by funding bodies and research partners alike.

What makes a strong academic-industry partnership

Keep in mind that we are not encouraging you to set up 20 industry collaborations in the coming week. Instead, focus on establishing a couple productive partnerships that can turn into true alliances. Find company representatives that you share a vision with, and then continue to build on that relationship. First, define the scope of the collaboration and manage expectations. Make a solid plan in which objectives, deliverables and milestones are agreed upon, so that you can measure the success of the collaboration.

Discuss the financial terms, how resources are to be contributed (e.g. in kind or in cash?) and how decisions are made. Make sure a publication strategy is in place, so that new intellectual propriety arising from the collaboration is not jeopardised. Does this sound familiar? Establishing your first industry relationships is not too different from developing a strong grant application, in which predefined tasks and clearly defined roles and responsibilities should always be a prime focus.

Leverage and increase your network

Are you interested in taking the first steps to industrial collaboration, or do you want to know how to leverage your current network? At PNO we speak the language of both the academic scientist and the life sciences entrepreneur. We take pride in developing partnerships that can change life sciences and healthcare for the best. Feel free to contact us for assistance!