OnCo
ideasIdea

A public-benefit phase 1 factory that takes academic discoveries into first-in-human trials

Promising academic cancer discoveries stall because nobody funds the expensive step from lab to first human trial. Build a shared public facility that does exactly that step, repeatedly.

The translational valley of death lies between validated preclinical results and a funded first-in-human study: manufacturing to clinical grade, toxicology, regulatory filing and early trial costs are beyond most academic groups and unattractive to investors before human data. NCI's NExT programme and some European infrastructures partially address this. The proposal is a purpose-built, publicly funded translation facility with in-house GMP manufacturing for biologics, cell products and small molecules, standing toxicology and regulatory teams, and a clinical unit, selecting projects competitively and retaining a public share of downstream value.

Hypothesis
The facility moves at least ten academic assets a year into phase 1 at half the cost and time of ad hoc translation and returns value to fund itself within a decade.
Rationale
Translation is a repeatable industrial process wasted when rebuilt for each project; shared infrastructure captures the economies of scale that individual academic groups cannot.
What would test it
Fund one facility for five years; measure assets translated, time from selection to first patient, cost per asset, and downstream licensing or trials versus historical academic comparators.
Maturity
early clinical
Who has to act
policy
Cost to try
Large (over $50M)
Years to first evidence
5
Bottlenecks it attacks

Connected

4top

institutions

2
National Cancer Institute (NIH)The Francis Crick Institute

bottlenecks

2
Funding follows fashion, not burdenThe valley of death between lab and product