The life sciences industry has been challenged over the last several years with an economic environment that is not conducive to breeding new innovation. While things are slowly improving, reports abound of fewer investments in life science start-ups and fewer active investors in the sector. Many new ideas aren’t being developed—because the financial climate can’t support them. This could result in an innovation bottleneck in our industry pipeline as a whole, and one could argue that the next generation of new medicines, medical devices, and other healthcare products is at risk if we don’t do something to improve the environment in which they develop.
Big Pharma has a responsibility to care for and protect the life sciences ecosystem in order to ensure its long-term health and ability to deliver the therapies that patients need. There are currently a number of initiatives being undertaken by large pharmaceutical companies to improve the innovation environment. Some of these efforts support the translation of ideas into drug candidates, while others are aimed at supporting the businesses doing the product development. I’m pleased to see that the pharmaceutical industry is experimenting with different ways in which it can support the life science community through these initiatives. Pharma ultimately benefits from this ecosystem, and has a
