Public-private partnerships (PPP) are an efficient means to advance scientific discoveries and boost the medical innovations needed to improve precision medicine. The increasing number and novel nature of such collaborations is keeping the biomedical field in constant flux. Here we provide an update on PPP development involving academic biobanks in the BBMRI community (the European Biobanking and BioMolecular Resources Research Infrastructure) and report the views on PPP of 20 key players from this field. The interviewed academic representants broadly show interest for their institution to establish PPP and initiate or partner with BBMRI expert centers. The results indicate that PPP has gained foothold in this area of biomedical research, with great promise to facilitate access to samples and data and to improve data interoperability and reproducibility.
Keywords: biobanks; drug development; expert centers; personalized medicine; public–private partnerships.