Taking Cues from the City of Notions

Over the last few decades, I’ve worked in both academia and industry, and with colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic, developing new targets and trying to facilitate their translation into the clinic. The US culture and environment is very different to that in the UK. 

Take Boston – a buzzing drug development hub, full of brilliant universities, fantastic hospitals, several pharma companies, a plethora of biotech companies, and crucially, lots of investment. Biotech venture capitalist funding in the UK averages £8 per head, in California it’s £50 per head, but in Massachusetts it’s £250 per head.

There are many elements that make the region so successful, but an important one is the culture. For example, I hear about students coming out of US universities who are already writing their second or third business plans before their first has even been funded. That spirit of parallel entrepreneurship, more risk-friendly investors, and a multitude of avenues for investment make Boston a haven for the drug discovery industry.

But that’s not to say that the UK doesn’t have its advantages. We also have an exciting and unique drug discovery ecosystem. We have phenomenal universities in the field – the medical school in Oxford has been number one in the world for the past six years. I believe we are producing some of the world’s great innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders. Our leaders have had the vision to fund great infrastructure resources: The Francis Crick Institute, the Catapults, the Sanger Institute, the Dementia Discovery Fund, and many more. We excel in innovation. But I believe where the UK really shines is in its most unique elements – the NHS, and our culture of open innovation.

The NHS is a phenomenal resource for accessing real-world data, for carrying out clinical studies much faster, and ensuring quicker adoption of innovation. I work with many clinicians in the NHS, and they are passionate about trying to discover new drugs, biomarkers, diagnostics, and devices – and we need to make use of that. 
Europe as a whole is strong when it comes to open innovation, and the UK leads the charge. When I say open innovation, I don’t just mean sharing data with the people who are funding you, I’m talking about sharing all of it with the whole world, immediately.

Most of my academic colleagues (be they basic or clinical scientists) are keen to work together – we just need to catalyze that discussion and make it happen. We all complain that there is never enough money, but personally I’m more concerned about identifying the scientific problem, and bringing together the right people. If we get that right, the funding will flow freely...

Biomedical research funding is currently split between academics, biotechs, and pharma companies – everyone wants more funding but the amount in the pot is finite. If we want to make the most of our resources, we need to be more efficient in drug development, and a simple way to do that is to reduce the amount of duplication and wastage in biomedical research. For example, we in the Structural Genomics Consortium only work on novel or impossible targets, and not those for which there are already several hundred publications.

I think that the UK is well on its way to becoming a large, booming drug development ecosystem, but we need to keep pushing forward and taking advantage of our assets to continue growing. I love working in Oxford – for me it is the “Boston of Europe”.