This morning's FDA News bulletin bore yet another example of a big company extending its research capabilities by making a long term relationship with a chosen research institute. This is a growing trend as companies downsize their in-house efforts and look elsewhere to continue their needed research activities. The announcement (see below) gave me pause. The world is turning towards this mechanism and away from an ever increasing thirst for government sponsorship. To all intents and purposes it looks like it is working as judged by the size of the deals that are being made in this category (both in terms of timeframe and in terms of the dollars involved). These are not simple technology collaboration agreements. They are LONG TERM relationships between a company and a whole university of research establishment. They provide relatively unrestricted money over a longer time frame and they usually take an option to look at the technologies emerging first - not much more.
I wonder if there are any research institutions in Canada that have already entered into such broad and lucrative arrangements yet. Is this something to ponder? Should we put the ghosts of petty company interference to bed and exorcize the demons that prevent us from seriously considering this growing trend before the best partners have already made their bets with other - mabye even less qualified - institutions around the world. Food for thought. Anyway Here's the quote.
From the FDAnews DRUG DAILY BULLETIN V:5 #8 Monday Jan 14 2008:
Salk Finds a Partner in French Drug Firm In the latest example of a nonprofit research center teaming up with private industry for money, the Salk Institute will announce a partnership with a Paris-based drug company that hopes to benefit from Salk discoveries. SignOnSanDiego.com
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