Productive university, industry, and government relationships in preclinical drug discovery and development: considerations toward a synergistic lingua franca.

Efficiency and productivity shortfalls conspire with subpar economic return to stigmatize the pharmaceutical industry and jeopardize its viability. This complex and costly innovation-to-commercialization failure, the formidable associated costs, and the relevance of various core competencies endemic to universities, the pharmaceutical industry, and government have been major drivers for establishing preclinical drug-discovery alliances involving these constituencies. Such cross-sector alliances have the potential to help restore at least some of the industry's former health by militating risk, enhancing productivity, and improving the quantity/quality of development candidates. This Editorial will highlight certain characteristics of pharma-industry and non-industrial settings that can jeopardize the effectiveness of these sectors for unified preclinical discovery campaigns capable of generating well-characterized drug candidates that merit human testing. Based on decades of research and development (R&D) and business experience spanning international big-pharma, biotechnology, and academic spheres, the author opines that a synergistic lingua franca is required among involved constituencies in order for such cross-sector discovery alliances to emerge as robust drug-discovery engines fueled by joint intellectual effort. Technology-transfer professionals, postdoctoral trainees, and consultants are discussed as resources for helping establish the university-industry-government triumvirate as a normative innovation network for preclinical drug discovery and development in the 21st century.