TransCelerate BioPharma Inc. – Unprecedented Collaboration
TransCelerate BioPharma Inc. – Unprecedented Collaboration
Ten major biopharmaceutical companies have joined forces to form a new non-profit organization with the goals of improving the industry by solving drug development challenges, improving studies, and bringing new medicines to market on a faster time schedule.
TransCelerate Founding Companies:
- Abbott
- AstraZeneca
- Boehringer Ingelheim,
- Bristol-Myers Squibb
- Eli Lilly and Company
- GlaxoSmithKline
- Johnson & Johnson
- Pfizer
- Genentech (a member of the Roche Group)
- Sanofi
The companies will collaborate by combining resources, including financing, intellectual property, and personnel. Guidelines have already been established for information sharing and outcome-oriented objectives.
In the fiercely competitive drug market, this represents an exciting change in corporate culture and industry race-to-the-top warfare.
“There is widespread alignment among the heads of R&D at major pharmaceutical companies that there is a critical need to substantially increase the number of innovative new medicines, while eliminating inefficiencies that drive up R&D costs,” said Garry Neil, MD, acting CEO of TransCelerate BioPharma. “Our mission at TransCelerate BioPharma is to work together across the global research and development community and share research and solutions that will simplify and accelerate the delivery of exciting new medicines for patients.”
Finding Focus
Clinical study execution is the primary objective for the organization’s initial focus. Five projects have been selected for the first wave of collaborative effort. The projects will be funded and developed by the group, including an online project management effort for sharing data, new standards for clinical data, research qualifications and training, and development of risk-based onsite monitoring.
The Payoff
In the face of the upcoming changes to health care and the pharma industry, collaboration is an interesting approach. The corporate strategy may be to offset lower profits with a shorter development-to-market cycle, extending the profits and allowing for faster development of a flood of new drugs and therapies.
The results could potentially lower the costs for consumers and the industry, a win-win situation.
Organization Alliances
TransCelerate is affiliated with a number of organizations and regulatory bodies aligned with the industry, including the FDA, European Medicines Agency (EMA), and Contract Research Organizations (CROs), and the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC), Critical-Path Institute (C-Path), Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI), Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI).