There is a Japanese proverb, “Fall seven times. Get up eight.”
The journey of researching and developing medicines requires this same spirit of resilience. Of the millions of compounds synthesized in the lab, the overall likelihood of reaching FDA approval from a Phase I study is just 7.9%.1 Drug development also requires a significant amount of risk and sizeable investments. Each approved drug typically represents an average of 10 years of research and testing1 at an average cost of $1.1 billion.2
Given these formidable challenges, pharmaceutical companies of many shapes and sizes are leaning into innovative collaborations that offer a pathway to share risk, resources, and expertise. In 2014, the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® (AMP®), a precompetitive public-private collaboration managed by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), was started as a way to improve the understanding of disease pathways and transform models for developing new treatments.
As the Head of Integrated Data Science and in my role as Co-Chair of AMP for Alzheimer’s disease (AMP-AD), I see firsthand the importance of collaborating to better understand this devastating disease at a molecular level. The mission of AMP-AD is to revolutionize how diagnostics and treatments for AD are discovered and developed to accelerate their arrival as solutions for patients and society. We do this by focusing on identifying biomarkers, developing new therapeutic targets, and fostering data sharing to accelerate drug discovery and development.
Eisai joined AMP-AD in 2021 as part of our relentless pursuit of advancements and discoveries in AD research. As a collaborator in AMP-AD, we leverage our expertise in target discovery and are able to apply insights from the group’s collaborative efforts to our own research.
In particular, data being generated by the consortium is being internalized by Eisai data science teams to support discovery projects and has already led to the reprioritization of some projects. Furthermore, through interactions with academic teams participating in the consortium, Eisai has been able to provide guidance and recommendations to researchers in considering the next generation therapies in the context of current therapies, which we hope will provide additional solutions to patients.
“Being part of AMP-AD is an ideal way to leverage our more than four decades of experience in AD research, development, and commercialization.”
Click here to learn more about AMP-AD.
This article was written by Eisai.
References
1. Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), Informa Pharma Intelligence & QLS Advisors. (2021). Clinical development success rates and contributing factors 2011-2020. Available at: ClinicalDevelopmentSuccessRates2011_2020.pdf. Accessed May 1, 2025.
2. Wouters OJ, McKee M, Luyten J. Estimated Research and Development Investment Needed to Bring a New Medicine to Market, 2009-2018. JAMA. 2020 Mar 3;323(9):844-853. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.1166.
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