Traditionally, drug development arises from a university discovery for which a pharmaceutical company acquires the rights and thereafter navigates the path to market approval. This process of shepherding a therapeutic discovery to become a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)- approved drug costs hundreds of millions of dollars. Historically, due to mission and structural reasons, universities simply have not been involved in drug development and manufacturing. Rather, they relied on industry to pick technologies and bear the burden and risk of developing blockbusting winners.
Today, the advent of cellular therapy has changed the constraints of that paradigm, as informed by the revolution of living cells used as drugs. Academic medical centers, including the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) and UW Health, now can take ownership of developing their own innovations for the greater good.
Read the full article at: https://www.med.wisc.edu/quarterly/volume-21-number-1/cellular-pharmaceuticals-meet-the-wisconsin-idea/