Translational Medicine: The Future of Therapy? PDF

Preface

The opportunity to produce this book, and our motivation for editing it, emerged from a number of research synergies and joint intellectual interests between our respective institutions (the ESRC Innogen Centre at the University of Edinburgh and the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development), which have fermented over a number of years. With a key longstanding interest in all aspects of commercial and public-sector therapeutic innovation, we have been keen to understand the emergence and future potential of new translational processes for converting new science, technologies, and knowledge into viable clinical products and identifying potential gaps and constraints along the health innovation pathway as a whole.

In recognition of the different implications of this new translational agenda for public health policy, commercial pharmaceutical innovation and academic science, we were eager to address some of the systemic aspects of this emerging field. Rather than focus simply on the basic science and its relation to clinical practice, we felt it important to ensure the dynamic interactions of key actors and institutions in the broader healthcare sector were adequately captured. Although translational medicine (TM) has been defined, driven, and put into practice by a number of different actors at the scientific, commercial, and social/regulatory levels, the interactions between these different sectors have been an underexplored area in social and medical sciences.

Many accounts of TM tend to focus exclusively on the science and technology and often on specific disease areas, but TM is a truly interdisciplinary field in terms of its key stakeholders, working methods, and skills base. Furthermore, it encompasses much more than just basic science and clinical practice. Its success depends on the successful integration of disciplines, funding streams, collaborative research and public-private partnerships, and buy-in from regulatory bodies and policymakers. We, therefore, wanted this book to provide the first overview of TM from the perspectives of academic science, clinical practice, industry, social/regulatory systems, and social science, essentially bridging the industry, science, and society nexus.

We also sought to ensure the book was international in terms of the range of contributing authors and the scope and content of the case studies used. We were delighted with the high quality of the authors' contributions, which reflect a remarkably broad international expertise.

We hope that this book will be widely read and enjoyed by both scientists and policymakers involved in strategic decision-making around TM; social scientists interested in medical technology, innovation, and public-private partnerships; scholars interested in innovation management in the life sciences; and students now taking the increasing number of post-graduate courses in translational medicine and allied disciplines.

In addition to the contributing authors of this book, we would like to thank the publishers for their excellent guidance and work to finalize the book. We are also grateful to our respective institutions for providing us with the time to edit and contribute to this book and for funding the research that has inspired our thoughts on the subject of translational medicine and its future.