A common factor between the great majority of the leading Covid-19 vaccine candidates currently in development is the fact that they are the result of collaborations between academic institutions and industry. Not only has the speed of development of the vaccine candidates been unprecedented, but the level of international collaboration involved has reached unparalleled levels.
Indeed, many have noted the link between the rapidity of the research and the level of collaboration involved, with the sharing of knowledge of both successes and failures enabling scientists around the world to avoid repeating the work of others in their search for a viable vaccine.
Collaboration also has clear commercial benefits, according to Alison Campbell, director of Knowledge Transfer Ireland (KTI). “Companies that do R&D and collaborate with third-level institutions will grow quicker and be more profitable. Companies that collaborate on R&D export twice as much, and have employment growth one and a half times those which do not.
“They are more competitive and more successful, and European Commission statistics show the companies that engage in R&D perform much better, and SMEs that develop their own intellectual property report 28 per cent higher revenue per employee.”
She believes these results stand to reason.
“If you collaborate on R&D with a third-level institution it’s a very good way to access expertise and facilities, and resources that you don’t have in your own organisation,” she says.
“It’s a good way to put your toe in the water. It allows you to work with people, to push forward an idea without having to invest in people and resources. It’s a very good way of outsourcing R&D, but more than that it is a good way to share minds and expertise.”
Emerging experts
KPMG partner Damien Flanagan agrees. "Industry can leverage these collaborations with academia to nurture relationships with emerging experts in their specific industry."
There are advantages for the academic partners as well, according to Flanagan.
“Collaboration with industry can enable academia to source funding for the construction of research infrastructure, employment of R&D staff and to fast-track technical developments up the technology readiness level scale.
“In addition, universities have increased their capabilities in providing analytical, testing and characterisation services. We would expect to see an increased uptake from industry of these resources.”
Academia is also making it easier for industry.
“For the most part higher education institutions have technology transfer offices, with the skills and expertise to identify opportunities and partner with suitable companies,” says Flanagan. “Streamlining of this process is vital to establish these collaborations, as is balancing expectations between protecting IP and publishing research data.”
The creation and protection of IP is critically important for successful partnerships. Indeed, the legal basis for the collaboration should be borne in mind from the very outset.
"Whilst collaboration is welcome it is important that the parties consider the legal implications," says Paul Gillen, employment and reward partner with law firm Pinsent Masons. "We have drafted a number of agreements to deal with these collaborations, including secondment agreements and service-provision contracts."
Secondment of employees to work with partners is a particular area of concern.
“When seconding employees as part of such collaborations it is important that the employer agrees this with the employee as this will be a variation to their contract, which can be done in a secondment agreement between the employer, the host company and the employee, which sets out the obligations of each,” says Gillen.
“It is also important in that agreement to deal with issues such as the costs of providing the secondee, including salary, benefits, pensions and expenses, intellectual property rights – especially where there are novel procedures and techniques used – and the significant knowledge transfer which will be part of the collaboration.”
He also emphasises the importance of having proper insurances in place to cover the employee during the secondment period, provision of data in compliance with GDPR, and, most importantly, agreeing where liabilities lie for work undertaken by the employee, especially where such work may have significant impacts on the health and wellbeing of the public.
Research base
“Collaboration is very important for us,” says Matt Moran, director of BioPharmaChem Ireland, the Ibec group which represents the biopharma industry in Ireland. “The key to the long-term future of the industry is to move into development and research activities. That is happening a lot more than in the past. The key is to work with the installed research base in academic institutions and research centres.”
In this respect he points to SSPC, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Pharmaceuticals, which is an internationally recognised hub of research expertise, and the development of innovative technologies to address key challenges facing the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry.
“SSPC is now moving into the area of continuous manufacturing,” says Moran. “That is at the cutting edge for the biopharma industry, which is moving from batch to continuous production.”
He notes that collaborations do not have to be confined to Ireland.
“APC is a UCD spinout led by Dr Mark Bennett. The company is now working on Covid-19 in collaboration with Vaxine, an Australian vaccine manufacturer, to accelerate the development and delivery of a new Covid-19 vaccine candidate.”
And they do not have to conform to traditional norms either. A very interesting collaborative effort with potential to advance research into personalised and other forms of medicine is about to be launched in Derry.
“We are creating a community health company in Derry based on the credit union model,” says Tony Bjourson, professor of genomics at Ulster University. “Member of the community will be the shareholders. At the moment if you want to get your genome sequenced you have to pay a fee to a company to do it and they also get to sell on the data. This project will monetise the inherent value in community genetic and health data.”
The new company will partner with health and pharma companies to unlock that value. “We will reinvest the profits to build up a fund to commission health-related research or health and wellbeing initiatives decided on by a board representing the community which owns the company,” he adds.
Lifestyle
Each member’s “investment” in the company will take the form of storing their genomic, health and lifestyle data with it.
“How we live and how we die are determined by two things, our DNA and the environmental factors which we encounter during or lives,” says Bjourson.
“We will use AI and other tools to look at the lifestyle and genomic data to uncover new insights. Derry is just the beginning. We intend to set up similar companies around Britain and Ireland and further afield on a franchise basis to expand the datasets and increase their value exponentially.”
Alison Campbell advises companies interested in collaborating with academia to get in touch with the knowledge transfer office in their local higher education institution.
“The people there understand the worlds of industry and academia and intellectual property, and can offer practical support to manage the collaboration process.”