Trevor Mundel, Global Head of Exploratory Clinical Development, has many years of experience developing new approaches to integrate Research and Development groups. He is using this knowledge to create an effective interface between Research and Development at Novartis in the form of a translational medicine function.
“There is a great need to shift the barriers to what we’ve been doing in the industry. It is crucial to streamline research and development and make ‘go/no go’ decisions early on in the process.” Simply speaking, this means finding the right target, finding a good therapy, and showing proof of concept.
The key to this, in practice, is innovation. “We’re seeing a dramatic increase in the number of failed compounds. One way to combat this problem is to think more deeply about our targets by having the translational medicine people—the experts on the biology of disease as it actually manifests in humans—work together with the disease areas, even at the level of target selection.” Trevor is now focused on developing this translational medicine function. In essence, translational medicine involves taking some preclinical or in vitro scientific data and producing out of that a useful medical therapy that actually is beneficial to patients with a particular disease (i.e., translating preclinical data to human benefit). By following this approach, the quality of candidates is improved and the time to proof of concept in man is reduced: two critical factors in this industry.
To facilitate this concept, the Translational Research/Translational Development Board was developed. This and other forums provide a structure for various groups to interact and make management decisions regarding the pipeline. “We encourage a collaborative, proactive spirit, where people work together as a team, where they all know each other, and they all realize that what their working for is going to be good, not only for themselves but for the company as a whole.”
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