[olsen]

The emergence of centers such as the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (VCNDD) are indicative of big shifts in the economy of drug discovery, mixing the traditional spheres of academia and industry as high costs, terminating patents, and insecure funding threaten pharmaceutical companies’ ability to research new ideas that may not pan out.

Fortunately for VCNDD, its innovative ideas have panned out thus far, as evidenced by three drug-like molecules aimed a treating Parkinson’s disease, which are currently undergoing final preclinical testing before they enter human test trials. If all goes well, the molecules should be ready for clinical testing as early as 2013, marking a major milestone in the drug discovery process."...Yet just as academic standards limited translation into clinics, business standards limited innovative ideas...

“The problem in industry was that everything was driven by the business priorities of the company. Anything that was coming from the most up to date science was hard to get the company to invest in,” said Conn.

“At Merck, I realized there was a big gap between basic science done in universities and drug discovery research being done in companies. The most innovative ideas could never get traction in an industry setting,” said Conn...

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