In this article, Dan Gibson, Head of Collaborations at CGT Catapult, shares his perspective on why collaboration is no longer optional, but essential.
In the development of advanced therapies, the instinct to protect intellectual property, data, and competitive advantage is understandable. Many organisations begin with a mindset of going it alone, carving a path through complex development processes, regulatory landscapes, and commercial hurdles with minimal external input.
But this traditional siloed approach, while sometimes necessary in early discovery, is quickly becoming obsolete in later stages of development and scale-up. As the field matures, the complexity of bringing these therapies to patients demands a different approach - one that is defined by shared data, shared infrastructure, and shared risk.
A tale of two approaches
Organisation A chooses the solitary path. It independently funds preclinical studies, commissions bespoke analytical development and builds its own datasets from scratch. Regulatory engagement is often reactive, and digital tools, such as AI, are limited in their utility due to the scarcity of training data. Every misstep, every iteration, is borne alone, in cost, in time, and in risk.
Organisation B, by contrast, opts into a collaborative development model. It joins a data-sharing consortium, aligns its analytics with sector-agreed standards, and pools resources with others to generate richer datasets that incorporate regulatory input from the start. Instead of duplicating infrastructure, it accesses shared facilities and leverages domain-specific platforms for process development, regulatory science, and digital integration.
At first glance, Organisation A appears to retain more control. But in practice, this control often comes at the expense of cost, speed, and regulatory confidence.
The value of collaboration: a simple equation
The perceived drawbacks of collaboration, loss of control, IP risk, and coordination complexity, are largely contingent risks. They can be mitigated through effective governance, robust legal frameworks, and strategic partner selection.
But the benefits of collaboration are increasingly guaranteed and measurable:
- Cost efficiency: Through shared development, organisations reduce duplicative spending. A recent example saw over £500,000 of potential parallel investment reduced to just £65,000 through consortium pooling, without compromising output quality.
- Speed to clinic: Collaborative environments enable parallel processing of workstreams, real-time data exchange, and AI-supported decision-making, accelerating timelines without compromising rigour.
- Regulatory readiness: Shared datasets designed in dialogue with regulators offer higher confidence and de-risk future filings, particularly where standardisation improves comparability and reliability.
- Innovation scalability: Innovation thrives when cross-functional and cross-organisational expertise intersect. Collaboration increases exposure to diverse technologies, business models, and use cases, thereby strengthening innovation pathways.
So the equation becomes:
Collaboration = (Lower cost + Higher speed + Shared learning + Greater confidence) – (Manageable risk)
Whereas:
Isolation = (High cost + Slower timelines + Limited learning) + (High risk borne alone)
The net gain from collaboration is consistently positive.
Learn more about our consortia and how we build multi-partner collaborations
Building a new development culture
For collaboration to become the default, we must actively dismantle the structural barriers that reinforce silos including aligning data standards, investing in interoperable platforms, incentivising pre-competitive consortia, and embedding collaborative design into business models from the outset.
Crucially, collaboration must move beyond meetings and MOUs. It must be operational, grounded in shared activity, joint ownership, and clearly defined mutual benefits.
If we are to deliver scalable, sustainable, and equitable access to advanced therapies, we must treat collaboration not as a virtue but as a strategic requirement.