The pharmaceutical industry is facing economic and strategic pressures to remain productive and profitable, and those involved in basic research in academia are encountering difficulties as funding is shifting toward more applied areas. Thus, the field of drug design and development can benefit from academic−industrial partnerships. In his Editorial, K. C. Nicolaou, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA, discusses the challenges and opportunities for such collaborations.

To start with, both parties need to understand each other’s research culture. This involves streamlined operations in industry but high-risk research in academia and also agree on topics such as how intellectual property is handled.
Nicolaou outlines some topics that he feels are suited to such partnerships. These include the exploration of new structural motifs, such as chiral motifs and three-dimensional structures, as well as exploiting natural products as lead compounds, and the exploration of biologic drugs.

According to Nicolaou, such a partnership model will be essential to apply fundamental chemistry to medicine.

• Academic–Industrial Partnerships in Drug Discovery and Development,
  K. C. Nicolaou,
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014.
  DOI: 10.1002/anie.201402816

Also of interest:

• Challenges Facing the Pharmaceutical Industry (free Webinar),
  John La Mattina,
  ChemistryViews.org 2014.