A New Initiative Bridges the Gap Between Discovery and Drug Development

Sixteen years ago, David Adler, now the chief scientific and medical officer at the PATHORA Institute of Pathology and Tissue Medicine, was starting his independent research career at the University Hospital Bonn when he learned that someone he had been close to in high school had passed away from glioblastoma. Adler, whose work focused on cancer, remembered grappling with the fact that, even after decades of investment and research in oncology, the disease remained very hard to treat. “At the time, I knew the science, I knew medicine, but I didn't know what it took to take a drug from discovery into the clinic and have a medicine in place,” he said.

Like Adler, many researchers lack real-world knowledge of the necessary steps for a discovery to go from the bench to the clinic. Recent estimates show that the development of innovative drugs, from initial in-human studies to regulatory approval, may take anywhere from fewer than five years to more than 20.¹ To better understand the bench-to-bed translation process, Adler moved from academia to the pharmaceutical industry in 2015.

Now, he leads a new initiative to help other scientists gain a better understanding of that process too. The program integrates coursework, networking, and a strategic task force to help connect academic researchers with industry professionals, aiming to bring more promising discoveries to the clinic faster.

Building a Drug Development Mindset

According to Adler, academia and pharmaceutical development are interconnected, yet they often function as two separate, independent worlds. “To me, [this] is shocking because a big part of the ideas, the research, and the information that the pharmaceutical companies use actually comes from academia,” he said.

Adler decided to bring these two worlds closer together by exposing researchers whose work could potentially be translated into medical treatments to the “pharmaceutical development lens.” To achieve this, Adler devised a three-stage program that will offer researchers practical knowledge about drug development, networking opportunities, and strategic input from leaders of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

The first stage of the initiative is a pharmaceutical research and development course established in collaboration with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The first part of the course will take place at these universities in early 2027. It will consist of a series of interactive lectures delivered by representatives of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to discuss the decision-making process around therapies that went through the early clinical development stages. The second part of the course, planned for the second semester of 2027, will cover the subsequent drug development steps leading up to drug registration and commercialization.

The classes, Adler explained, will be open to a small group of researchers at different stages of their academic careers and aim not only to provide scientists with real-world information on drug development but also to show young researchers other career options. “I wanted to give these master’s and PhD students the opportunity to see that there may be a possibility for [them] to take the pharma-biotech track,” he added. Along with the course, the initiative also aims to help researchers build a network with members of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.

The final stage of the initiative aims to establish a “Pharma-Academic Strategic Task Force” at participating universities. According to Adler, this task force will consist of academics and pharmaceutical industry leaders who will serve as a committee to screen and evaluate the most promising discoveries with the potential to be translated into the clinic. The research group behind these discoveries will then be paired with biotech and pharma partners to further develop these ideas. “Often, pharmaceutical and biotech companies are very happy to engage in collaborations and partnerships with academia,” explained Adler, emphasizing the excitement of industry members to engage in the initiative.

Beyond Cancer and Into the World

The initiative will initially center on cancer due to Adler’s expertise and academic and industry connections, but he hopes to expand the project to other therapeutic areas that “are critical and have an unmet medical need,” he said, citing diabetes and obesity as potential candidate areas.

If this initial program is successful, Adler hopes that other countries with high levels of biomedical research and investment, but difficulty translating that research into actual medicines, will see the benefits of adopting similar strategies—a change that could lead to more discoveries becoming medicines and more partnerships between academia and the pharmaceutical industry, he added.

While it is still uncertain whether this initiative will bear fruit, Adler is excited to set it in motion and see what effects it might have. “[Will] strengthening this link between the pharmaceutical industry, the biotech, and [academia] eventually make a difference down the road?” he said. “That's exactly what we hope this initiative will answer.”