The concept of Open and Collaborative Innovation was the fundamental pillar in the focus of the Next Level Pharma conference, held on 12th-13th October at the Hilton Vienna Hotel, Austria.
A flagship event for all those actors involved in the Life Science sector, which was a great opportunity to learn and discuss, first hand, about this new conception of the pharmaceutical industry research and development process.
It is clear for big Pharma that making the whole new drug R&D process is very costly and has many associated risks, as regulations get more and more tight. A single idea develops lots of avenues and ways of research and development, ways in which companies have to invest large sums of money.
Therefore, many of these large companies have changed their strategy. This is when a new concept is introduced: "Open Innovation". This concept referred to Life Science sector introduces new ways that big pharma companies are introducing and exploring on how to collaborate in R&D with external partners such as Universities, Start-ups and SME in the Biotech landscape.
Key players in the Pharmaceutical industry understand the whole Biotech industry as big laboratory where to explore, support and acquire innovative and promising technology. Thus, new processes are introduced from consortia to the use of open and collaborative innovation service providers with a clear double objective of sharing /reducing risks associated to R&D while maintaining a significant amount of promising technologies in their pipelines.
Changing the approach to new product development by large pharmaceutical companies does also gives more opportunities for small biotechs, research centers and Universities to increase market value from their R&D results.
Chaired by Dr. Robert Williams from Cancer Research UK and Mark Wilson from GSK, the event was attended by numerous personalities in the industry, who spoke and addressed the topic of Open and Collaborative Innovation from various angles (Large pharma companies such as Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson or GlaxoSmithKline, research institutions (Karolinska Institute or The Biomarkers Consortium, small and medium size biotechs Nature Biotechnology, Astrid Research and BIOCRATES Life Sciences AG)
All the lectures and panel discussions encouraged that all members in attendance were positioned and obtained more information on the concept of Open Innovation and everyone could speak and comment on a subject so important and interesting.
In conclusion, the event was a great success and a fantastic way to explore about this new concept in the entire scope of the Life Science sector. As Open Innovation is an ongoing key element for years to come we strongly recommend not to miss next conferences on the topic offered by NextLevel Pharma.
