Future Medicinal Chemistry releases themed issue higlighting the Academic Drug Discovery conference

Future Medicinal Chemistry, a leading MEDLINE-indexed journal published by Future Science Group, has released a themed issue dedicated to providing coverage of the presentations that took place at the 2015 Academic Drug Discovery Conference (Cambridge, UK), organized by SelectBio. The themed issue, which consists of contributions from the conference speakers, offers a broad variety of content, from discussion on industry-academia alliances and novel drug discovery models to the latest research emerging from academia.

In the themed issue, Guest Editor and conference Chair John Spencer (University of Sussex, UK), provides an excellent summary of the presentations that were heard, and the main discussion points that arose at the meeting. The importance of bridging the translational research gap, dubbed the 'the valley of death', in addition to strategies towards implementing open innovation drug discovery platforms, emerged as key themes at the conference. This is reflected in the themed issue, which features expert commentaries on these areas from both Tim Hammonds (Cancer Research Technology Discovery Laboratories, UK) and Peter Nussbaumer (Lead Discovery Center GmbH, Germany), among others.

John Spencer commented that typically "academics tend to be able to take projects to a certain level, but never with the depth that you can achieve in an industrial setting, as academia just doesn't have the infrastructure." By highlighting the Academic Drug Discovery conference with this themed issue of the journal, Spencer hopes that "industry will see the value of a lot of academic research and vice versa and this will build bridges and lead to some translational opportunities for academic researchers and industrial chemists as well."

Managing Commissioning Editor for Future Medicinal Chemistry, Hannah Coaker, commented: "This themed issue provides an excellent insight into academia's growing role in the drug discovery arena and delivers key discussion on some of the major challenges associated with closing the gap between basic research and commercial application. With contributions from stakeholders, university researchers, and members of pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations from around the world, this themed issue communicates the diverse perspectives of the many members involved in the drug discovery process."