The Alabama Drug Discovery Alliance: a collaborative partnership to facilitate academic drug discovery

Highlights of the 30th International Conference on Antiviral Research

The 30th International Conference on Antiviral Research (ICAR) was held in Atlanta, GA, USA from May 18 to 21, 2017. This report provides an account of award lectures, invited keynote addresses and oral presentations during the meeting. The 2017 Gertrude Elion Memorial Lecture Award by Michael Sofia highlighted one of the most important accomplishments in recent drug discovery in antiviral research, the identification of the hepatitis C virus direct-acting antiviral sofosbuvir and new alternatives to combat hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. The Antonín Holý Lecture Award by David Chu on medicinal chemistry provided an overview of early developments of nucleoside analogs for the treatment of HIV and varicella zoster virus infection and how this knowledge serves to develop new drugs targeting HBV. Priscilla Yang gave the first ISAR Women in Science lecture. She reported on pharmacological validation of new antiviral targets for dengue, Zika and other flaviviruses. The William Prusoff Young Investigator Lecture Award by Maaike Everts described the Alabama Drug Discovery Alliance and the Antiviral Drug Discovery and Development Consortium, and how they are helping to accelerate the development of new antivirals. The 30th ICAR was a success in promoting new discoveries in antiviral drug development and research. The 31st ICAR will be held in Porto, Portugal, June 11–15, 2018.

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The 30th ICAR was held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA from May 18–21, 2017.

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This article summarizes presentations by ISAR award recipients, principal invited lectures and keynote addresses.

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Mini-symposium topics included antiviral immunity and emerging viral infections.

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Other sessions and topics included hepatitis and retroviruses, respiratory viruses, DNA viruses and medicinal chemistry.

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The 31st ICAR will be held in Porto, Portugal, June 11–15, 2018.

Consortia's critical role in developing medical countermeasures for re-emerging viral infections: a USA perspective

Viral infections, such as Ebola, severe acute respiratory syndrome/Middle East respiratory syndrome and West Nile virus have emerged as a serious health threat with no effective therapies. These infections have little commercial potential and are not a high priority for the pharmaceutical industry. However, the academic community has been active in this area for many years. The challenge is how to take this academic virology knowledge into a drug discovery and development domain. One approach is the use of consortia and public-private partnerships - this article highlights ongoing efforts in the USA. Public funds, such as those from government sources, can support research efforts that do not to appear to have commercial value. The key to success is finding a way to combine the different cultural and operational values and reward systems into a productive collaboration to identify new antivirals.

Collaboration versus outsourcing: the need to think outside the box

As has been widely reviewed elsewhere, the pharmaceutical industry is experiencing an ‘innovation deficit’ as evidenced by the decline in new chemical entity output. This decline, compounded by increased costs and regulatory requirements highlights the need to significantly revise strategic options across the drug-discovery spectrum. Within such revision(s), much of the focus has been on outsourcing to reduce, or at least contain, costs, but if the underlying predominance of ‘closed collaborations’ is not challenged to allow better use of combined knowledge and, thus, move towards a more genuine collaborative process then a ‘numbers only’ approach will not bring medium-to-long-term survival. There are many problems to confront in evolving new sustainable strategies, a real need to think differently exists and should to be cultivated. This article reviews current outsourcing and collaboration strategies to provide a perspective on how great knowledge sharing could help revise the drug-discovery process.