Of the many elements that are drawing industry and academia together in pursuit of drug discovery, one of the driving forces is the development of novel targets and the complex biology that underlies those targets. No longer can big pharma go it alone with in-house R&D: instead, industry is looking to re-engage with basic scientific research in a collaborative, rather than contract, relationship.

A case in point is the recent announcement of the Translational Oncology Research Collaborative Hub (TORCH) between the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Pfizer Australia. The collaboration is an extension of a long-standing relationship between Peter Mac and Pfizer, which in the past has been instrumental in helping Pfizer develop Sutent, a multi-kinase inhibitor approved for renal cell carcinoma and gastrointestinal stromal tumours.

The collaboration will see Pfizer commit $15 million to support further research at Peter Mac, particularly in three areas: molecular imaging, cancer genomics and early stage clinical trials. "[PET imaging and genomics] are important in the early validation of our compounds," Pfizer's head of strategic alliances, Dr Dan Grant, says.

"By bringing these two processes together, getting different markers of response, we are able to streamline the process of drug development and hopefully get drugs to market quicker.

"The real value of the collaboration is that the same people who do our early stage pre-clinical imaging programs, helping us to find what drugs are effective, also take those drugs and use them in the early stage clinical trials."

Pfizer is working in particular with clinical oncologist Associate Professor Grant MacArthur; the director of Peter Mac's Centre for Molecular Imaging, Professor Rod Hicks; and a host of collaborators in protein chemistry, led by Dr Rick Pearson. It has also funded Associate Professor Ricky Johnstone from Peter Mac's gene regulation lab through a five-year research fellowship in genomic oncology.

"The collaboration is aimed at taking our pre-clinical compounds into phase I, first-in-human trials," Grant says. "It is marrying our philanthropic or grant activities with our commercial activities."

Dr Julian Clark, head of business development at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI), is a big fan of industry-academia collaborations too. Clark believes that it is time to kill the stereotypes held by both research and industry scientists. "Yes there are horror stories out there on both sides, but I think there are enough of us now that we can say we cut the mustard."