Making a match
Do your passions overlap? Do you have the same long-term goals? Are you willing to do long-distance from the Chicago area to San Francisco?
Answering these questions may be reminiscent of online dating, but they have an important place in business relationships, too.
In fact, questions like these helped AbbVie leaders evaluate a potential partnership with University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), a research university dedicated wholly to health science.
The two groups made a match in 2013, the same year AbbVie opened its doors, solidifying an ongoing, broad partnership that allows for multiple collaborations between UCSF and AbbVie researchers, from exploring tissue targeting mechanisms to better understanding immunotherapy.
‘How does this translate to patients?’
AbbVie’s relationship with UCSF is among a growing number of partnerships with academic and research institutes that foster collaboration between scientists at both organizations.
While many industry-academic collaborations may focus on a particular therapeutic area or a single project, the UCSF partnership is structured in a unique way. It’s the first university-wide partnership AbbVie pursued, based on a shared interest in strong research in areas like immunology and oncology, and also a desire to truly work collaboratively.
“We think in the same way: how does this translate to patients?” says Steve Elmore, Ph.D., vice president, drug discovery science & technology, AbbVie, and UCSF partnership joint research committee member.
Because UCSF has many strong clinician-scientists, it means AbbVie researchers can work with people who are actually seeing patients and then incorporate their insights into the research.