PAASP GmbH

Project Management for academic partners

Translating academic excellence into innovative therapeutics can be challenging, especially since there is often a different understanding on the needs and importance of next steps.

We have identified the following challenges:

• Development of novel therapies is typically rooted in discoveries by academic scientists.

• Translation of academic innovation requires partnership with industry that the knowledge and resources required to develop a product benefiting the patients in need.

• Academic innovators need to be prepared to the expectations that potential industry partners have in terms of:

• Availability and integrity of data records

• Rigor in design, conduct and analysis of key research results

• Industry criteria of success beyond claims of therapeutic efficacy (safety, PK/PD relationships, competitive positioning and differentiation)

Due to our experience in pharma industry and the learnings from a publicly funded project on the differences of projects between academia and industry we provide the following solutions:

• Learn about the expectations of a potential industry partner early enough (e.g. before designing and conducting key sets of experimental evidence)

• Implement research rigor and data integrity measures that are likely to be of value to ensure robustness and reliability of experimental findings.

• If resources are limited, discuss and prioritize those project-specific aspects that will be essential for decision-making by potential industry partners.

• PAASP provides expertise and support to complement the scientific excellence of an academic innovation team with specific knowledge regarding translational milestones and knowledge-claiming research standards.

Our experienced staff has a broad knowledge in drug discovery in big pharma companies and provides consultation on a) quality culture in research labs, b) on the status quo of research behavior, c) on the design of studies to mitigate risk of bias, and d) on the improvement of projects to increase attractiveness and value for third parties.

We are providing this service to biotech companies and to academic groups who would like to provide additional confidence in their data for other stakeholders to transform it into a clinical project.

After setting up an introductory call to identify your goals, our experts will ask for the necessary information, screen and judge the situation to understand the current situation. Subsequently, the experts will develop together with you and your team a plan on the targets to be achieved and how to achieve them with.

Short case study:

We have contributed to grant applications in form of a separate work package. This work package included training of researchers, support on implementation of best practices in the research lab in context of documentation and transparency of research data, and improvements on the study design to include appropriate randomization and blinding.

A research question that cannot be supported within your organization or needs to be confirmed in an independent lab, can be answered by our outsourcing service. PAASP has access to trusted labs for which it was confirmed to be free of bias and work according to high quality ethics. These labs have established standards to ensure the unbiased outcome of experiments.

Training in good research is the most important aspect to ensure data quality by creating awareness and giving tools at hand on how to avoid bias. To achieve this, PAASP’s trainers have set-up a training protocol which usually lasts two days and covers several topics such as:

• Sources of poor data quality

• How to enhance research rigor

• Common mistakes in data analysis

• Implementation challenges for study designs

• Publication standards and existing guidelines

The Training program is flexible and can be adjusted according to your needs.