Business
Table 7: Academic high throughput screening labs10
ect plans. The principal investigator is generally a university faculty researcher, who discovers inter- esting biology and conceptualises the target-based drug discovery project. The project manager co- ordinates meetings with the principal investigator and the high throughput screening facility to dis- cuss and develop assay development and optimisa- tion plans for early screening phase based on avail- able funds and overall goals. The principal investi- gator generally drives the project and is responsible for setting project scientific direction and with the help of the HTS director, in resolving technical issues facing the project and the team. The actives identified from the assay are further characterised in secondary screens and the data is used at this stage to procure more grant funding. The results from screening are often utilised for filing an early stage patent application, in which case the project manager establishes communication with the prin- cipal investigator, the HTS director and the tech- nology transfer office to establish co-inventors and time-lines on the created intellectual property. The team may also include students and/or HTS staff who work under the direction of the Principal Investigator and HTS director. The project manag- er, in discussion with the researchers, helps decide on the appropriate timing of publication of drug screening data and disclosure of the results of pub- licly funded research. Depending on how far the project progresses, the project manager also brings in other available expertise at different stages of drug discovery to expand the team’s capabilities. If the academic screening project results in valuable hits, chemo-informaticians, analytical biochemists and medicinal chemists join the core group in map- ping out the hit to lead optimisation strategies. The management team also contacts database man- agers, pharmacologists and formulation experts at later stages of the project. The university clinical scientists also join the teams during more advanced stages of the project, providing clinical validation and direction in setting the clinical proof of con- cept strategy, and maybe a co-inventor on intellec- tual property.
who are multi-disciplinary, and an industry trained project manager, who works with the principal investigator to provide project stewardship, and is responsible for developing and implementing proj-
66
At all stages of drug discovery collaboration, the project manager identifies projects, contributes to organising project teams, designing timelines, and co-ordinating efforts of strategic university researchers, relevant university service cores, and their external collaborators from industry, disease foundations, regulatory and technology transfer resources. Regularly scheduled team meetings with preset agendas and formal minutes are held to focus teams on time-lines, discuss issues, make decisions, prepare status reports, maintain project
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