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Report: State of the Discovery Nation 2018

Medicines Discovery Catapult

2 min read

The Medicines Discovery Catapult and BioIndustry Association call on the R&D community to address five themes to help boost productivity


This new report, based on surveys and over 100 in-depth interviews with senior executives of UK drug discovery companies, shows that global R&D productivity is under unprecedented pressure. In response to this, world leading opportunities exist for the UK to reshape the medicines discovery process to develop medicines greatly needed by patients. The report highlights that:

  • Global R&D productivity is under unprecedented pressure
  • The model of medicines R&D must be radically reshaped to meet patient needs
  • A key problem is reliance on using inadequate models for human diseases
  • Commercialising emerging technology will require new models of collaboration
  • Data science is now indispensable to medicines R&D: research data is now generated in such high volumes that the ability to harness it has become a critical factor in developing new medicines
  • It is imperative for the UK to provide industry with straightforward, well-governed access to consented patient data and human tissue samples – this is an acute problem for SMEs

​Read the report here

Download the report as a PDF

Associated Organisation