New tool developed to help build research relationships

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has developed a new tool to help build research relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and UK academics. The Library of Initiatives for Novel Collaborations (ABPI LINC) research database was launched today at the Francis Crick Institute.

This research database will enable academics and clinical researchers to identify opportunities online for collaboration with the biopharmaceutical industry, including funding opportunities, access to cutting-edge equipment, compounds and opportunities to build collaborative relationships.

Additionally, the tool provides a publicly available central portal that demonstrates the ways that pharma companies are supporting open innovation, through working with researchers in both hospitals and universities across the UK.

“ABPI LINC will benefit clinical research in the long-term,” said Damian Mole, MRC senior clinical fellow and honorary consultant surgeon at the University of Edinburgh, when discussing the launch in the ABPI release. Industry-academic partnerships are vital to keep the UK at the forefront of cutting-edge research and this tool will allow our university researchers to fully explore and compete for the funding and collaborative projects on offer. ABPI LINC will undoubtedly foster these links and speed up drug discovery research.”

“As co-chair of the research partnership around neurodegeneration between Eisai and UCL, I know first-hand how collaboration with scientists in the pharmaceutical industry can help in the fight to find effective treatments,” added Professor Alan Thompson, dean of the faculty of Brain Sciences at UCL. “ABPI LINC will help place the UK’s unrivalled scientific expertise at the forefront of that fight, whether that’s in university, hospital or pharma laboratories.”

So far, the database already includes around 370 projects and will be routinely updated as new projects are offered. The search function will enable users to specifically look for projects based on compounds, funding, non-specific partnership, investigator-initiated studies, equipment and resources, collaboration facilitators and challenges — or a mix of these. Additionally, users can search by company name.

“Collaboration has never been more important for successfully delivering new therapies for patients,” emphasized Dr Malcolm Skingle, CBE, chair of the ABPI’s Academic Liaison Expert Network and director of GSK’s Academic Liaison Worldwide Business Development, who authored the foreword to the ABPI LINC booklet. “Innovation requires a vast range of skills, resources and knowledge, which no single organisation can hold by themselves. ABPI LINC makes this collaboration easier than ever and has the potential to make a real difference to the speed of innovation in the UK by linking together the world-beating expertise we have in our universities, in the NHS and in the pharmaceutical industry.”