What people say

" The 4D team provided invaluable, practical transaction support in our successful bid to be acquired. Their combination of industry and finance expertise, hands-on approach and understanding of how deals work was invaluable. "

What is Translational Medicine?

4D work to create a unique translational platform

As the UK's leading specialist translational consultancy we are often asked: 'what is translational medicine?'  We define it as something much more profound than the simplistic acceleration of science 'from bench to bedside'. 

Translational medicine is about a fundamental re-integration of the study of human clinical patients into the medicines discovery process far earlier than has been the case in the modern high throughput approach to discovery which has dominated Pharma for the last 30 years.  It is about:

• Creating the opportunity for exposing candidate drugs to human data, tissues, volunteer patients and clinical insight BEFORE any 'development'
• Investing in the technologies, clinical scientists, facilities, and academic health science 'Institutes'  in which these sort of 'first in man' observational studies can be carried out in a way which can also pioneer new Models of Care for the patient
• New ethical, regulatory and reimbursement frameworks to encourage this approach and the more targeted or personalised medicines and diagnostics it is generating.

The benefits of this approach are fundamental:

• For Pharma: an opportunity to break away from the increasingly unsustainable 'one size fits all' 'blockbuster' model of drug discovery
• For NHS: opportunity to access radical new therapies for patients far earlier and more cost effectively than is the case at the moement
• For Universities: opportunity to generate new revenues from biomedical and convergent technologies far more quickly
• For Patients: faster and cheaper access to better treatment.
• For UK plc:  opportunity to lead the world by putting the uniquely 'captive' database represented by the NHS to work in the vanguard of biomedical discovery

Contact us to find out how we can help your business.

Case Studies

 

For emerging ventures

Our team worked with a public company on the early business planning of a spin-out of non core technologies; the new company was recently launched.  More details.

For pharma / corporates

Our team advised on the ground-breaking $50m biomarker collaboration between NHS, four universities and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, announced in April.  More details.