From Discovery to Dissemination: How a New Collaboration is Helping Get Knowledge ‘Out the Door’

Healthcare investment firm Deerfield Management recently visited the University of Chicago to meet with researchers and discuss Hyde Park Discovery, a new collaboration to advance discoveries from the lab.

“I’m really excited to see this Hyde Park Discovery initiative get launched – and even more excited to think about what the future holds for us through this initiative,” said Erin Adams, vice provost for research at the University of Chicago, to a full room of UChicago faculty, researchers, and staff.

Samir Mayekar, managing director and associate vice president of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, kicked off the event, which brought together representatives from Deerfield and some of the University’s top researchers. The goal was to discuss Hyde Park Discovery, a collaboration between Deerfield and UChicago announced in January, the specific benefits and resources available, as well as shared goals and how to get there.

“Bringing innovative ideas and technologies from the University of Chicago ecosystem to the world is the mission of the Polsky Center, and collaborations such as this help us make this goal a reality,” said Mayekar when the collaboration was formalized. “Backed by Deerfield’s scientific capabilities, we are optimistic that this agreement and the work that follows will result in new potential treatments and cures getting into the hands of the patients who need them.”

Over the next ten years, Deerfield will provide up to $130 million in targeted funding, as well as operational and scientific expertise to advance UChicago discoveries with the potential to improve disease treatments.

“As an institution that is committed to fundamental research… scientists [across campus] strive to uncover mechanisms of human health and disease to understand the what, how, where, and why,” said Adams.

She continued by touching on what she called the “UChicago special sauce.”

“This is a place that is fundamentally collaborative – an institution that has incredible interdisciplinary research,” Adams explained. “We are all here on one campus. We have a medical school and hospital within walking distance from any of our research labs, which allows for incredible opportunities for collaboration between physician scientists and basic researchers who want to apply their work to human health and disease.”

With a leading academic medical system, more than 160 interdisciplinary institutes and centers, and 50 state-of-the-art core facilities, UChicago is on the forefront of groundbreaking research and clinical development.

“For me personally, and I think a lot of my colleagues, there is a point where we question how to make our research have an impact on the world,” noted Adams. “We generate knowledge, but how do we actually get that out in the real world so that it affects lives, society, and our environment.”

Innovation translation and commercialization is an “incredibly effective” way of achieving this impact, she said, describing the Deerfield collaboration as a vehicle to “get this knowledge out the door.”

“I think Deerfield is a great mechanism. They have what I’ll call the special sauce of Deerfield,” Adams continued, describing the company’s model of engaging with universities to identify and advance research. This includes a team of drug development specialists, VC diligence, a large network of experts, and its own lab space, in addition to financing.

“I’m incredibly excited for this opportunity,” Adams concluded, “I think this is the spark that will help us get to where we want to be.”

A joint steering committee made up of leadership from UChicago, the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Deerfield’s scientific team will evaluate projects based on several criteria with the goal of achieving Investigational New Drug readiness on an accelerated timeline. This operating model has the potential to bring new drugs to the market more quickly and cost-effectively.

Genuine Collaboration and Doing Good Science

Deerfield is a healthcare-focused investment firm that manages approximately $16 billion in assets. Notably, the firm also “employs a dedicated team of scientists and industry veterans called Deerfield Discovery and Development (3DC) who work to advance internal drug discovery efforts,” mentioned Bill Slattery, partner at Deerfield. Slattery recently joined Nadim Shohdy, chief operating officer of 3DC, for a presentation to Hyde Park Discovery, UChicago’s newly announced research collaboration with Deerfield.

3DC scientists partner closely with principal investigators in Deerfield’s academic collaboration network to provide deep functional expertise and experience across key disciplines. They can support investigators in designing and executing relevant experiments in data science and genetics; drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics; chemistry, manufacturing, and controls; and more.

“If something isn’t going to work, you want to know that quickly. Failing fast is important,” said Shohdy, explaining that 3DC’s work makes this possible through its infrastructure and economies of scale.

Near-term success for UChicago’s collaboration with Deerfield is likely to mean identifying projects on the university side and “bringing them into the 3DC pipeline to start doing the hard work together that is needed to develop a drug,” Shohdy added. “3DC’s approach is founded on conducting robust translational science, identifying promising translational opportunities, de-risking development plans, and creating a clear line of sight to value infection points.”

Medium-term success for Hyde Park Discovery may mean the creation of a new venture or a partnership with a biopharmaceutical company. Ultimately, the goal is to get an approved therapeutic into the hands of patients.

“3DC provides access to capabilities that can help reduce the odds of failure,” said Shohdy. “We try to be collaborative and transparent in how we are advancing the story and what the data is looking like. We believe this is the best possible mechanism to build therapeutically-focused companies based on academic research.”

Shohdy continued describing Hyde Park Discovery as a “genuine collaboration” with integrated capabilities that aim to streamline drug discovery, project management, and business development efforts, as well as disease landscape evaluation to assess unmet needs and guide projects to key milestones.

“What we have with Hyde Park Discovery is a healthcare investment firm that is dedicating time, effort, and attention to learning more about the research at University of Chicago to try to identify projects that are translational and can address a significant unmet need,” he said.

The event concluded with a Q&A and quick overview from faculty who are working on various projects. This included experienced PI Anthony Kossiakoff, Otho S.A. Sprague Distinguished Service Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, who offered some words of advice:

“What I’d say is, don’t give up. You just keep at it, and you take it out of the valley of death, and get on the other side. And I can guarantee that some of the things at the early stage might not look like they are going to be valuable, but things change. I think you enthusiastically keep going and doing good science and don’t take no for an answer.”