Major Barriers Preventing Scientific Organizations from Achieving Important Social, Business and Economic Goals.

 

Scientific organizations agree that one of the major barriers to achieving their social, business and economic goals is the difficulty in identifying, accessing, assessing, validating, and acquiring new scientific technologies and approaches to overcome their major challenges.

Working alongside scientific, technology and business leaders for three decades, these major problems have been identified:

 

Group	Barriers	Ultimate Goal
Scientific organization	Scientific managers and technology officers are not able to stay on top of emerging technologies. New technology development is not driven by major scientific challenges affecting the Pharma and Biotech groups. A 2012 Report to the President on Propelling Innovation in Drug Discovery, Development and Evaluation states the gaps in technologies and methodologies underlying drug discovery and development. Commonly, 50-60% of members of industrial, academic and government scientific communities report major challenges and high-to-extreme productivity loses with existing scientific technologies. They state the need of improved systems with adequate must-have capabilities. Many technologies implemented by Pharma and Biotech [in efforts to address urgent deadlines] are found to be not fully verified. It usually takes significant amounts of time and resources to develop, run and deploy applications critical for drug approval.	Produce better medicines, diagnostics and materials
Technology, service and medical device provider	Most Technology developers and providers lack a clear view of community-wide challenges and critical needs. Obtaining this first-hand information is costly. Most platforms or services are developed as a result of generic secondary market information. Applications on commercial systems usually don’t address critical needs of the Pharma and Biotech organizations such as improving drug discovery and development, or drug evaluation. Traditionally, from the time a new scientific technology hits the market, it takes 3-5 years on average to reach maturity and requires development of several upgrades and applications to address real needs.	Deliver verified technologies that can immediately address community-wide challenges
Technology investors	Life sciences investors are understandably cautious and funding remains lackluster. Traditional valuation methods can not be used with most life sciences companies that are in the early stage of the business life cycle. Lack of adequate assessment of new technology’s scientific and commercial impact is delaying investment decisions. Investments in life sciences sectors have declined almost 30% from 2011 to 2012.	More investments and higher ROI
Governments	Information on Grand Challenges in life sciences is not yet available. Governments and non-profit organizations are beginning to realize the importance of focusing on scientific and technological breakthroughs for the world’s most pressing health problems.	Technological innovations, health solutions & economic growth
Charitable foundations	There is a lack of cost-effective technologies that address the world’s most pressing health problems. Limited assessment of new technology’s scientific and commercial impact is delaying funding decisions.	Improve human condition