EarlyBirds Is Helping Pharma Companies Reduce the Time to Produce New Drugs

EarlyBirds, an open innovation ecosystem, is calling on the pharmaceutical industry thought leaders and executives on the hunt for disruptive innovations to join its platform. To find out more about the company’s services, readers can visit earlybirds.io.

One of the most persistent challenges that the pharma industry has to contend with is the time and cost it takes for new drug formulations to be researched, tested, and made ready for production. The industry has a dismal record of turning drug concepts into successful products. The difficulty of the scientific process, which is unyielding in its rigidness, is compounded by strict federal regulations that make every new experiment a risk and potential liability for a pharmaceutical company.

Researchers at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research found that, on average, pharma companies take over 10 to 15 years to create and launch a new drug on the market. Depending on the complexity of the research, the cost can be around 1 to $2 billion. 90% of the clinical failures are attributed to a lack of clinical efficacy, toxic side effects, poor drug-like properties, and even misreading the demand from the target consumer.

There have been attempts to improve this demoralizing statistic and to give pharma companies a more repeatable and reliable path to bringing new drugs to patients. For example, in a publication titled “Why 90% of clinical drug development fails and how to improve it?” researchers from the University of Michigan suggested deemphasizing potency using Structure-Activity-Relationship (SAR) and instead proposed using the Structure‒Tissue Exposure/Selectivity–Activity Relationship (STAR).

More recently, consultants from Accenture’s Life Sciences group published an opinion piece that suggested using a confluence of technologies to reduce drug research costs, reduce the time-to-market, and improve patient outcomes. The article stresses the importance of undertaking data-led research that employs technological innovations in other domains to fast-track the invention of a new medication.

EarlyBirds cofounder Kris Poria shares his insight into potential solutions for the problem. He says, “There is a surprising amount of siloing in the hard sciences that prevents technology from advancing as fast as it can. While clinicians, health science researchers, and bioengineers can propose ideas for future research, they need the support of material physicists, mechanical engineers, and computer scientists to create simulations and equipment that can test out their theories. By approaching the problem from a cross-disciplinary angle, we can make breakthroughs that are not only demonstrable but can also be replicated for mass production. If you have an innovation that can find an application in the life sciences, we urge you to sign up to the EarlyBirds platform as an Innovator at https://earlybirds.io/en/innovator.”

Jeff Penrose, EarlyBirds’ other cofounder, offers his perspective on other recent challenges facing the pharma industry by saying, “The post-pandemic era has seen a seismic shift in how companies operate and get results. With supply chains disrupted, C-level executives had to rethink their technological approach to be better prepared to weather another such storm. The pharma labor pool, which is already 14% lower than demand in the United States, now has increased expectations regarding perks such as remote working. Pharma giants are also being urged to adopt practices recommended by the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance) framework. Finally, rising inflation and geopolitical struggles across the globe are forcing pharma leaders to be cautious in expanding operations and taking on new risks.”

With its award-winning platform and services, EarlyBirds has the experience, data, and capabilities to help pharmaceutical companies get better equipped to face such challenges. EarlyBirds does this by working with pharmaceutical companies to lay the foundation for the modernization of their R&D. This includes understanding the key components of how they operate and the core sectors of the pharmaceutical industry in which they concentrate. Once this is understood, innovation ecosystem maps are created based on technical and business themes and the desired outcomes.

The maps are created in collaboration with the pharmaceutical companies and broken down into agreed core themes and sub-themes. These are then populated with relevant global innovators covering startups, scaleups, and mature companies who provide solutions and services in each category. The maps are dynamic and grow and change shape as new solutions emerge in the market. Innovation maps can help Early Adopter organizations judge the capability of potential partners, implement better sourcing, bring innovations for test and trials, fill in capability gaps, form strategic research partnerships, solve wicked problems, add supply chain resilience, increase the pace of R&D, and more.

Pharma industry professionals and researchers looking for innovators to aid their discovery process can sign up to the EarlyBirds platform as Early Adopters at https://earlybirds.io/en/early_adopter.