{"entity":{"id":"b-translational-valley","kind":"bottleneck","name":"The valley of death between lab and product","aka":[],"tldr":"Most academic discoveries die before anyone tests them in people because nobody funds the middle step.","summary":"Between a validated target or lead compound in an academic laboratory and a first-in-human trial lie medicinal chemistry optimisation, GMP manufacturing, toxicology, formulation and an IND or CTA dossier, work that costs several million dollars, is not publishable, and is funded by neither research grants nor, until the asset is de-risked, by companies or venture capital. Of highly promising basic science claims published in leading journals, a small minority reach licensed use decades later. The consequence is that promising ideas stall for years or vanish, and that the ideas that do cross are selected for commercial attractiveness rather than for medical need. Public translational programmes (NCI Experimental Therapeutics, NCATS), charity drug-development units, academic-industry alliances and non-dilutive philanthropic capital exist but are small relative to the flow of discoveries.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"Butler, Translational research: crossing the valley of death (Nature 2008)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1038/453840a"},{"label":"Contopoulos-Ioannidis et al., Translation of highly promising basic research into clinical applications (Am J Med 2003)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-9343(03)00013-5"},{"label":"NCI Experimental Therapeutics (NExT) Program","url":"https://next.cancer.gov/"},{"label":"NCATS","url":"https://ncats.nih.gov/"}],"tags":[],"related":["open-targets","depmap","idea-fund-national-drug-development-office","idea-fund-academic-sponsor-indemnity-pool","idea-moon-public-phase1-factory"],"cancers":[],"sections":["drug-discovery"],"technologies":["ai-drug-design","protac-degrader","crispr-screens"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":["recursion","insilico-medicine","isomorphic-labs","generate-biomedicines"],"institutions":["nci","cruk","broad-institute","francis-crick","dkfz","icr-london","nki"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":["paper-butler-nature","paper-contopoulos-ioannidis-am-j-med"],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"stage":"funding-incentives","severity":"major","metrics":[{"label":"Highly promising basic science findings (101 claims in top journals, 1979-1983) that led to a licensed clinical use within about 20 years","value":"5 of 101; 1 in extensive use","source":"Contopoulos-Ioannidis, Ntzani & Ioannidis, American Journal of Medicine 2003","url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-9343(03)00013-5"},{"label":"Probability that an oncology drug entering phase 1 is eventually approved","value":"3.4%","source":"Wong, Siah & Lo, Biostatistics 2019","url":"https://doi.org/10.1093/biostatistics/kxx069"}],"causes":["Research grants fund discovery, not the GMP manufacturing, toxicology and regulatory work needed to reach humans.","Companies and investors want assets de-risked to a stage academic labs cannot reach alone.","Academic incentives reward publications, not INDs, and translational work is not publishable.","Universities lack the specialised staff (CMC, regulatory, clinical operations) and technology transfer is slow.","Ideas for rare, paediatric or low-income indications have no commercial pull at any stage."],"currentEfforts":["The NCI Experimental Therapeutics (NExT) programme provides free drug development services from lead optimisation through IND-enabling studies and early trials.","NCATS and the Clinical and Translational Science Award hubs fund translational infrastructure at US academic centres.","Cancer Research UK's Centre for Drug Development and Commercial Partnerships take academic assets into phase 1 and license them onward.","Stand Up To Cancer Dream Teams and the Cancer Grand Challenges fund multi-institution translational teams with milestone-based awards.","ARPA-H funds high-risk translational programmes with active programme management.","Academic-industry alliances (for example, AstraZeneca's and Bayer's open innovation programmes and the Structural Genomics Consortium) share tools and compounds pre-competitively."],"successLooksLike":"Any target or lead with strong validation can access funded, professional IND-enabling development regardless of commercial attractiveness, and the median time from a validated academic discovery to first-in-human dosing falls below five years."},"route":"/bottlenecks/b-translational-valley/","neighbours":{"collection":[{"id":"depmap","kind":"collection","name":"DepMap (Cancer Dependency Map)","route":"/collections/depmap/"},{"id":"open-targets","kind":"collection","name":"Open Targets Platform","route":"/collections/open-targets/"}],"idea":[{"id":"idea-tr2-shelved-asset-commons","kind":"idea","name":"A commons of shelved cancer drugs with their full data, open to new hypotheses","route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-shelved-asset-commons/"},{"id":"idea-fund-royalty-pool-academic-assets","kind":"idea","name":"A diversified royalty pool that finances academic phase 1 trials across fifty assets","route":"/ideas/idea-fund-royalty-pool-academic-assets/"},{"id":"idea-fund-ind-enabling-fund","kind":"idea","name":"A fast IND-enabling fund that pays for toxicology and manufacturing in eight weeks","route":"/ideas/idea-fund-ind-enabling-fund/"},{"id":"idea-fund-biomarker-validation-fund","kind":"idea","name":"A fund for prospective 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