Leveraging an Industrial–Academic Partnership To Optimize Small Molecule Process Development within the Pharmaceutical Industry

There is a growing trend in Ireland toward greater collaboration between academia and the pharmaceutical industry. This is an activity encouraged at a national policy level as a means of providing researchers from academic institutions the opportunity to gain important first-hand experience in a commercial research environment, while also providing industry access to expertise and resources to develop new and improved processes for timely medicines. The participating company benefits in terms of its growth, the evolution of its strategic research and development, and the creation of new knowledge that it can use to generate commercial advantage. The research institute benefits in terms of developing skill sets, intellectual property, and publications, in addition to access to identified current industry challenges. A case study is provided describing the collaborative partnership between a synthetic chemistry research team at University College Cork (UCC) and Eli Lilly and Company.