(478e) Enabling Technologies Consortium: A New Paradigm for Pre-Competitive Collaboration on Technology

The Enabling Technologies Consortium (www.etconsortium.org), as a forum for pharmaceutical companies to discuss ideas, share information, and collaborate on the development of new enabling technologies used in pharmaceutical drug substance and product development, has now been operating since 2017. ETC gives member companies the ability to partner with external collaborators to further the mission of developing pre-competitive enabling technologies for pharmaceutical development and manufacturing. Pre-competitive projects, defined here as collaborations between multiple pharmaceutical companies and third parties, are in progress in the areas of solubility, crystallization, modeling, analytical instrumentation, and high throughput automation. The goal is to produce an efficiency-enhancing advancement or refinement that will ultimately be made broadly available to the public, either through publication, commercialization of a new product, or other means. ETC has been able to streamline these partnerships by eliminating the need for parallel agreements between each member company and the external party, providing a governance framework for the advancement of collaborative projects, and allowing for companies interested in enabling technologies to invest equally in their development. ETC members are also able to provide feedback on newly developed technologies upon request from vendors. This talk will provide an update on the progress of the ETC and some of the lessons learned.