This episode of the Critical Path Institute podcast features Maaike Everts, Executive Director of C-Path’s Translational Therapeutics Accelerator. Maaike joins C-Path’s CEO and podcast host Klaus Romero to explain how the Accelerator supports the translation of academic drug discoveries into viable therapies for patients. The discussion highlights the unique challenge of bridging what is often called the drug development “valley of death” — the gap between academic research and drug development by pharmaceutical companies.
The Accelerator offers not only funding but essential mentorship, education, and coordination among drug development research scientists, regulatory experts, and industry to help academic investigators design experiments and navigate regulatory and business landscapes.
Key Insights:
Unique Stakeholders Approach: Beyond pharma and regulators, the team actively serves academic scientists to help convert early-stage discoveries into assets viable for industry investment.
Cross-disciplinary Integration is Critical: Drug development requires pulling together biology, chemistry, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, toxicology, manufacturing, regulatory science, and commercial strategy — disciplines rarely coordinated in academic labs. The Accelerator acts as a multidisciplinary orchestrator that guides teams toward patient-ready therapies.
High-Touch Funding with Continuous Mentorship: The C-Path team’s monthly milestone meetings create accountability and foster collaboration, combining scientific rigor with practical guidance. This continuous support distinguishes the C-Path team from typical grant funders who provide money, but offer limited engagement and guidance.
Global Reach and Diverse Portfolio: The Accelerator’s support crosses geographic and therapeutic boundaries, funding small molecules, proteins, antibodies, peptides, and gene therapies across neurodegenerative, pediatric, rare, and orphan diseases. This broad scope maximizes impact on unmet patient needs.
Collaborative Panels Advance Translational Science: Upcoming C-Path events illustrate its leadership in convening experts from academia, industry, regulators, people with lived experience and patient advocacy groups to discuss foundational processes like target selection, emphasizing the Accelerator’s role as a nexus within the drug development ecosystem.
This episode uniquely reveals how the team powering the C-Path Translational Therapeutics Accelerator acts as both translator and navigator, guiding academic innovators through the complex terrain of drug development to accelerate therapies that impact patients globally.
