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Exclusive Life Science Feature "THERE ARE FAR MORE CRITICAL UNANSWERED QUESTIONS THAN THERE IS MANPOWER AT LILLY TO PURSUE." Dale Edgar, Ph.D., global head of science and technology partnerships, Lilly Additionally, outcomes are often not in alignment. For example, folks at Lilly are charged with developing innovative medicines that are both safe and effective for patients while providing a return to its shareholders. The typical academic researcher is striving to create cutting-edge scientific discoveries that can be published in a high-profile peer-reviewed journal. If you are a pharmaceutical company wanting to leverage the full potential of P3s, where is the best place to start? Lilly has embraced a multipronged approach toward developing and implementing its P3 strategy. First, Lilly created an executive-level position responsible for the global strategy and governance of P3s. Second, the company placed an individual in the position with experience in traversing the P3 maze. Third, Lilly launched a postdoctoral fellowship award program. Finally, the company developed its P3 objectives and identified opportunities to advance its work in this area. In August 2012, as part of the company's larger external innovation strategy, Dale Edgar, Ph.D., took on the responsibility for consortia and P3s across Lilly's research enterprise in the newly created position of global head of science and technology partnerships. A former associate professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, he has had his share of NIH and DoD grants and industry-sponsored projects that delivered a strong list of publications. He ultimately spun out his laboratory at Stanford to found a start-up biotech company called Hypnion Inc., which Lilly acquired in 2007. The translation of Edgar's basic research, from the bench to the bedside, resulted in numerous patents. Here, Edgar shares his insights on Lilly's strategy and governance approach to P3s, starting with the creation of the company's global postdoctoral scientist training program. PEER-TO-PEER SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO PARTNERSHIPS LifeScienceLeader.com • • • • • "When we create a partnership," Edgar explains, "we don't pitch money over the walls and then wait for results." This is what Edgar defines as a traditional sponsored project. "A real partnership is where you're working together in real time, hand in hand." For example, at Lilly, this involves a peer-to-peer relationship between Lilly scientists and academic and government researchers. To do 32 this, Edgar believes you first need to create a trust-based peer-topeer culture within your organization. So in addition to placing Edgar, a former academic peer, in charge of brokering academic relationships, Lilly seeks ways for its scientists to engage with external researchers in a peer-to-peer capacity. "To help build relationships, trust, and the common sense of purpose that is vital to innovation, we created the Lilly Innovation Fellowship Award (LIFA)," Edgar explains. This competitive postdoctoral fellowship provides up to four years of funding for exceptional postdocs, so they don't have to constantly be looking over their shoulder for money and, instead, can spend all of their time innovating. This includes a full salary and benefits paid by Lilly, as well as a $5,000 annual stipend for travel expenses. Here is how it works. The LIFA program is both an award and a partnership-based training program, with a Lilly mentor, an academic mentor, and a postdoc, all creating what Edgar refers to as an innovation triad. What Edgar likes about this approach is that both the academic and industry mentor are working together in the interest of the postdoc's success (the common sense of purpose). This not only creates a high-trust peer-to-peer relationship between the parties, but also establishes connectivity and a mutually beneficial flow of innovation through the postdoc. "Lilly receives nominations from our scientists as to which universities and institutions they believe can help us address five grand challenges that are broadly relevant to the pharmaceutical industry." Those challenges are: November 2013 to establish clinical efficacy and safety earlier in the drug development process to develop the right medicine for the right patient to deliver exceptional patient outcomes to simplify large-scale chemistry and protein production and minimize its environmental impact to target and deliver biologics and small molecule drugs precisely and safely. "P3s are an especially powerful strategy for answering a wide variety of critical unanswered questions embodied by the grand challenges," he states. A small sample of potential critical unanswered questions include: