Leveraging public private partnerships to innovate under challenging budget times.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), academic medical centers and industry have a long and productive history in collaborating together. Decreasing R&D budgets in both the private and public sector have made the need for such collaborations paramount to reduce the risk of further declines in the number of innovative drugs reaching the market to address pressing public health needs. Doing more with less has forced both industry and public sector research institutions (PSRIs) to leverage resources and expertise in order to de-risk projects. In addition, it provides an opportunity to envision and implement new approaches to accomplish these goals. We discuss several of these innovative collaborations and partnerships at the NIH that demonstrate how the NIH and industry are working together to strengthen the drug development pipeline.