Derek Lowe's commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry. An editorially independent blog from the publishers of Science Translational Medicine. All content is Derek’s own, and he does not in any way speak for his employer.

By Derek Lowe

Posts tagged with "Academia (vs. Industry)"

• Academia (vs. Industry)

  Industrial Manuscripts Not Welcome

  26 November, 2018

  Update: see the comments section. The editors of the journal are calling this “a highly unusual and unfortunate error” and are taking steps to correct it. Now, this is a situation that I haven’t seen mentioned before. A reader (from one division of a large pharma company that I won’t name) had prepared a manuscript… Read More

• Academia (vs. Industry)

  Reporting Clinical Trials

  20 September, 2018

  In 2015, a study looked at drug-industry sponsored clinical trials versus those funded by the NIH, and concluded that about 20% of industry trials did not report results when required to do so, while the figure for NIH-sponsored research was about 50% (and even more for trials funded by other institutions). At the time, I… Read More

• Academia (vs. Industry)

  Pressure For Academia?

  18 July, 2018

  I have enough time today for a quick question, one that’s also being asked by several people on Twitter. Back when I was a grad student, there was definite pressure on people to seek an academic position. I saw more than one group where this pressure was applied selectively to the more promising-seeming grad students/postdocs… Read More

• Academia (vs. Industry)

  Decline of the Midwest?

  19 October, 2017

  Here’s an article at The Atlantic (via the Washington Monthly) that should concern anyone involved in R&D. It’s about the funding problems of many of the large public universities, particularly in the Midwest. Chemists will recognize several historically strong departments in that part of the country – but may also have noted… Read More

• Academia (vs. Industry)

  Allow Me to Peruse Your Grant

  7 September, 2017

  This is one that I certainly hadn’t heard of until a few days ago. According to this article, academic scientists are using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to get a look at other people’s grant applications. In the past few years, some scientists have complained that FOIA has been weaponized by activists and special interest gro… Read More

• Academia (vs. Industry)

  Changes in NIH Grant Policy?

  11 May, 2017

  There are some pretty big funding changes being proposed at the NIH that many people may not be aware of. A concerned NIH grantee has sent along some links and comments about these, and I think that they’re worth bringing up. Here’s a blog post by Mike Lauer of the NIH going into some details: Read More

• Academia (vs. Industry)

  A Call For Academic Drug Companies

  10 February, 2017

  An editorial in Cell asks “How Much Longer Will We Put Up With $100,000 Cancer Drugs?” I’m of two minds on questions like that. OK, three minds. The immediate impulse, not an honorable one, is to respond with pure snark, which is always tempting, in the vein of “If you can keep your company going… Read More

• Academia (vs. Industry)

  From Industry Into Teaching?

  6 February, 2017

  An email from a former colleague brought up a topic that I don’t think has been addressed here before directly: what experiences do readers have as industrial scientists who have then moved into teaching positions? I know that this is a fairly frequent move. For the readership here, I’d guess that many of the examples… Read More

• Academia (vs. Industry)

  Vanderbilt Heads Into the Clinic for Alzheimer’s

  29 November, 2016

  There’s an interesting experiment underway at Vanderbilt, where a team from the university is taking a possible Alzheimer’s candidate into clinical trials on their own. Now, you could come up with several headlines for this, along the lines of “Academic researchers in way over their heads”, or “Plucky professors make e… Read More

• Academia (vs. Industry)

  Come, Let Us Reason Together

  15 September, 2016

  Here’s an editorial from Morris Birnbaum of Pfizer on collaboration between academia and the drug industry. He’s worked on both sides of the fence, so that makes for some useful comparisons. I think the summary sentence would be this one: “It seems obvious that many of the obstacles to effective academic-pharmaceutical partnership… Read More