According to Eric Rubin, the Irene Heinz Given professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, industry is instrumental from the start in not only helping to discover new antibiotics, but also discovering ways to produce them efficiently in formulations that are deliverable to patients.
In an interview published online in the August 2016 issue of [[http://www.healio.com/infectious-disease/emerging-diseases/news/print/infectious-disease-news/%7Be328b419-9c7e-4d58-80a2-21dfcc12127a%7D/public-private-partnerships-critical-in-fight-against-infectious-diseases Infectious Disease News}}, Rubin said: “There’s no substitute. Many types of expertise that are needed to turn a discovery— even if it was made in academia—into a drug only exist in industry.”
For example, the first Zika vaccine—developed by US manufacturer, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, and South Korea’s GeneOne Life Science—was approved for clinical trials in people just over four months after the virus was declared a public health emergency.
