To produce drug candidates at the pace needed to remain
competitive, pharmaceutical and biotech companies increasingly are using
translational science to make decisions about what targets to pursue and how to
allocate resources, according to a panel of pharmaceutical and biotech industry
leaders and academics recently convened by the Tufts Center for the Study of
Drug Development.

“Traditional drug development approaches still have
utility, but they likely won’t produce enough new drugs fast enough,” said
Tufts CSDD Director Kenneth I Kaitin. “Translational science offers an
important step forward by helping to shorten the time needed to develop
solutions in human health and disease based on new, basic research
discoveries.”

Driving the need to bring new prescription drugs to market
faster, according to Kaitin, is the high cost of development — currently about
$1.3 billion to develop and gain regulatory approval for each product — as
well as the pending expiration of patents on dozens of top-selling drugs in the
next few years.

“The encouraging news is that developers are engaging
in a wide range of strategies to change the way they operate, including greater
use of development partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, and in- and
out-licensing agreements, in addition to implementing new approaches to
portfolio optimization and development,” Kaitin said.