Numerous small biotech companies have emerged in recent years in an effort to research the potentially large number of new drug targets arising from advances in molecular biology. These firms often are very knowledgeable of the basic science pertaining to their respective areas of expertise, but they often have less expertise in other aspects of drug development and clinical trials design, or they may not have facile access to large chemical libraries or high throughput screens. Small biotech companies have access to our discovery services including repositories and screening. They may also access our development services: Rapid Access to Intervention Development (RAID) (with an academic collaborator) and the Drug Development Group (DDG). Furthermore, NCI offers small business funding opportunities.
While forging an alliance with a larger corporate entity is certainly one means to drug development resources, working with NCI offers the ability to minimize the risk of development costs while assuring that the most scientifically meritorious approaches find the most rapid route to enter clinical trials. NCI is not ultimately in the business of marketing drugs, but its development process and clinical trials network, like funded grants, can allow a product to become more attractive to the private sector to manufacture and develop into a New Drug Application (NDA).