T he global health crisis has placed immense pressure on pharmaceutical companies to create therapies and vaccines, diagnostic tests, personal protective gears and other devices—at a fleeting pace. This pressure has increased the significance and capabilities of coalitions and partnerships in the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical and MedTechexecutives are more open to collaborations now than before the COVID-19 crisis.

Partnerships are not a new concept for life sciences companies. Affiliations before the pandemic were focused on preventing transmissible diseases and infections in underserved communities. Some life sciences companies were forging new collaborations to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilitiesand analytics in research. However, the recent partnerships and affiliations have been somewhat different in terms of the geographies and scale—post the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is a 20-year old global alliance for vaccines and immunization—created to improve access to new vaccines for children in underserved communities. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was constituted as the result of the Ebola virus in West Africa. Funded by philanthropic, public and private donations, CEPI finances the research and development of new vaccines.

Gavi and CEPI have joined hands with various life sciences companies to research and develop vaccines for the COVID-19 crisis. For instance, in June 2020, AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish biopharmaceutical company, declared a $750 million agreement with Gavi and CEPI to back the process of research,manufacturing and distribution of a staggering 300 million doses of vaccine, expected to start delivering by the end of 2020. The pharma company collaborated with the Serum Institute of India to provide one billion doses of vaccine to middle and low-income countries.

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA)—a U.S Department of Health and Human Services office—is partnering with several life sciences companies. For instance, Janssen Pharmaceutical Company partnered with BADRA to accelerate its coronavirus vaccine development initiatives. The global life sciences company is also collaborating with partners worldwide to showcase its research on antiviral molecules to facilitate the discovery of possible COVID-19 treatments.

Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) is established by the National Institutes of Health and the Foundation for the NIH as a recent initiative to combat the COVID-19 impact. ACTIV has partnered with leading federal agencies in the U.S, multiple biopharmaceutical companies, and European medical agencies to design a global response strategy to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coalitions Driving the Speed of Vaccine Development

COVID-19 vaccine development requires top-notch strategies and collaboration on an unprecedented scale. It requires collaboration and coordination across multiple stakeholders and geographies to accelerate the pace of development. However, that is just one aspect of it. Developing and distributing a billion doses of vaccine need partnerships and collaboration with several third-party manufacturers on another level.

Various other U.S based pharmaceutical companies have ventured into COVID-19 vaccine development that has advanced to the clinical-trial phase at breakneck speed—far quicker than vaccines in the past. Reports suggest that 7 of 12 vaccine candidates in phases 2 and 3 were made possible only through collaborations between pharmaceutical giants, smaller companies and academic institutions. For instance, the University of Oxford partnered with AstraZeneca to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.

Affiliations are happening amongst diagnostics companies as well. About 46 diagnostic tests have been developed by a handful of the pharmaceutical giants that reign supreme in the diagnostic industry. However, eight of these tests were developed through alliances and partnerships.

Alliances will become the new Norm

The pharmaceutical industry gathers huge volumes of data. However, most of the data are inaccessible to third-party organizations—owing to security, technology and other major constraints. These constraints illustrate that the healthcare landscape is not fully benefiting from the secondary use of these large volumes of critical health data. As a result, this slows the pace of innovation and significantly impacts the medical system and its outcomes.

Beyond the partnership and alliance strategies around COVID-19, life science companies are exploring new opportunities to drive up the drug development and distribution processes. The industry stakeholders continue to increase their commitment to improving process efficiencies, healthcare technology platforms and drug discovery. While the initiatives were in place already, the pandemic has accelerated the pace of innovation. We believe these alliances will continue to work together to develop superior solutions much faster, even after the pandemic scenario subsides.

To discuss the latest innovations in the life sciences industry and how to leverage the capabilities of the discoveries, give us a shout!