Professors Charles P. Hart, Director & Michelle Arkin from UCSF discuss how university drug discovery centers fill a niche in the biotherapuetics ecosystem.
“… there are several considerations that come into play around deciding between a commercial CRO or an academic drug discovery center for a drug discovery project. One important consideration is the nature of the target and its uniqueness and complexity in the creation of the biological screen. …. for a novel target, complex biology, or an unusual mechanism of action, the specific expertise required may be more readily found in the academic setting. In addition, universities with drug discovery centers often have core facilities in allied areas that could be brought to bear on the project; such technologies could include in vivo animal models of disease pathophysiology, systems biology-based platforms (e.g., genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics), structural biology (X-ray crystallography, NMR, and cryo-EM), and computational drug discovery.”
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