Shanks, E; Ketteler, R; Ebner, D; (2015) Academic drug discovery within the United Kingdom: a reassessment. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery , 14 (7) p. 510. 10.1038/nrd4661.

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Abstract

In 2014, Tralau-Stewart et al. published an overview of academic drug discovery efforts in the United Kingdom based on a survey they conducted (UK academic drug discovery. Nature Rev. Drug Discov. 13, 15–16 (2014))1. They observed that academic screening within the United Kingdom is comparable to that in the United States (discussed in Ref. 2) with regard to primary therapeutic focus (with cancer, infectious disease and cardiovascular disease constituting the most highly prioritized therapeutic indications) and areas of unmet medical need. Parallels were also drawn between the motivational drivers and annual operating costs of screening in both countries. However, regarding infrastructure, it was reported that most drug discovery programmes in academic screening groups (ASGs) in the United Kingdom were conducted in a traditional research group (that is, a team of postdoctoral researchers, Ph.D. students and technicians led by a single principal investigator), with only 13% of groups operating in centres dedicated to drug discovery. The most surprising finding was that “access to high-throughput screening (HTS) facilities and associated compound libraries were not reported by any UK group” (Ref. 1). Tralau-Stewart et al. clearly stated that the responses provided a “snapshot” of academic research at the time of the survey (2013) and not a comprehensive analysis, as some groups may not have received or responded to the survey1. However, it seems to us that the presence of centre-led ASGs and industry-standard drug discovery programmes conducted within an academic environment in the United Kingdom was substantially understated by the survey results. Therefore, we conducted another investigation of the academic drug discovery landscape in the United Kingdom by identifying academic drug discovery units and facilities and analysing their characteristics, which we discuss here.

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