Academia vs Industry - Can't we all just get along?

Flashback #1: I am a graduate student in the middle of running a myriad of experiments that will eventually contribute to my Ph.D. thesis. I conceived, designed, and ran a full experimental effort addressing a number of questions related to the molecular mechanisms of drug addiction. And I will share a secret with you. I loved my job. The asking of hard questions and designing experiments was for lack of a better explanation, fun. Everyday, I could not wait to get into lab and run those experiments.

<>To describe me in those days, I was an academic. If one would ask me, “What is the point of your research?”, I would respond with a standard answer. “We are attempting to understand the mechanisms of addiction so that we can begin to consider methods of therapy when treating someone coping with a drug abuse problem”. It sounded good. By saying that I was trying to work toward a therapy to contribute to a significant health problem helped to justify the ‘fun’ that I was having earning my Ph.D. But honestly at the time, I did not consider or even have the faintest idea of what actually would be necessary to take the ideas and results that I was generating in the lab and turning this into something that would address the problem of drug addiction. They were nice words that I would say, nothing more. <>When I was in academia I had little contact with any industrial entities. I remember how we looked down at anyone that would involve themselves in a scientific business. Somehow, our pure scientific endeavours were above the dirty pursuit of money and profit. Sometimes, sales representatives from companies would visit my department. I would avoid these individuals, fearing that I might contaminate myself and my lofty experimental efforts. Thinking back, it was a bad attitude to have but academia can be just like this.

<>Flashback #2: After many years in academia, the long hours and the hard work, I simply felt I was getting nowhere. I was highly published but the rewards of the career were just not making themselves known to me at the speed that I desired. I chose to extract myself from academia and do something that I thought I would never do. I joined a small start-up biotech company as a research scientist. And you know what? I loved my job there too. I continued to do research, but now it was part of a business. It was not painful and finally after 11 years of higher education I felt like my career was progressing.

Moreover, becoming a research scientist in the context of a business opened my eyes to issues that I had never considered before. How do we take these wonderful lofty scientific ideas and generate the kind of things that will get to and help the public? How does one go through the process of developing a therapy, a drug, or a diagnostic, the thing that I flippantly would mention as a student many years before?

<>In addition, I began to develop a new attitude about academia. That for all the money that is spent on blue sky research, so much is wasted because the effort to turn these ideas into something useful is just not there. Research goes on and on, sometimes things trickle out, but not at the rate that they should. My views changed. I looked back at my years of work at the university and thought, what a waste of some pretty good ideas, if only I had thought them through to the commercial end. I can only wonder what might have been.

In the industrial setting, the research remained important but it had to contribute to the goals of the business. And it became reasonable to me that if a group of people were willing to invest millions of dollars to develop a therapy, drug, or diagnostic, then those investors should expect to make some money in the process. Most are surprised to learn that the cost to companies for developing a new drug (from pure research all the way to approval for public use) is approaching $1 billion U.S. and takes an average 8-10 years. The harsh reality is that business entities are the most appropriate way to take the vision of scientists and deliver them to the public. Like everything in life, it simply costs money to make it happen.

And so we arrive to the present. Today I am involved with the investment and development of early stage ideas in the life science industry. I seek out concepts that have commercial potential, but have not had the financial support necessary to mature the technology. And this is where I have arrived at my current conclusion. The two worlds of business and academia in the life sciences need to embrace each other. The resource of ideas within academia is almost limitless. Universities are a breeding ground for discovery but this discovery is for naught if society as a whole can not benefit from it. In turn, the skills of the business community are essential to turn ideas into the reality of products that will contribute to the health and well being of society. Both sides could benefit immensely if the bad attitudes that exist could be put aside and we allow both sides to play to the strengths which make them what they are today.