The discovery and development of a new medicine is time-consuming, risky and expensive. It often takes 10-15 years and an investment of on average >$1 billion for a compound to navigate its way along the drug discovery and development process - and only 8% of drug candidates entering clinical development make it to market and benefiting the patient1,2. To mitigate the risk and investment, but also to increase efficiency by pooling resources, experience and expertise, more and more collaborative partnership/open innovation models of R&D have emerged. Founded by the European Commission (EC) and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), one such joint undertaking is the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI). IMI supports collaborative research projects and builds networks of industrial and academic experts in order to boost pharmaceutical innovation in Europe. Collaborative approaches such as IMI have traditionally focused on pre-competitive areas. Recently, however, we have seen the emergence of projects focused on more competitive areas of research, particularly early drug discovery and hit and lead optimisation.SCOPUS: re.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe