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With European regulators preparing to launch an adaptive licensing pilot programme, Gigi Hirsch, from MIT, discusses the promise of a more flexible approach to drug approval.
Regulators and health technology assessment bodies discussed early experiences with pilot programmes in which they work together to provide drug developers with joint advice on the design of clinical trials.
Tralau-Stewart and colleagues present a survey of the academic drug discovery environment in the United Kingdom in 2013, and discuss the major trends in comparison with the United States.
Early-stage drug discovery is rapidly evolving into an endeavour in which scientific research communities in both the public and private sectors are finding new ways to share knowledge, expertise and resources. Here, we discuss some of the challenges for such collaborations and highlight examples in which traditional barriers such as intellectual property concerns have been addressed.