ABOUT CONSCIENCE
We will find new ways to break the barriers to care.
Conscience is a non-profit focused on addressing market failure in drug development. Based in Canada, and launched in partnership with the Structural Genomics Consortium, the organization is supported with a $49M investment from the Government of Canada, and led by some of the industry’s most respected academics, researchers, industry and community leaders.
Launched in 2023 with $105 million in new funding to support network building, challenges, and direct investment in promising open science drug discovery, the Conscience Network brings people and organizations together to turn science into a team sport. Our staff and board combine deep expertise in drug development with community and network development for collaboration in open communities of practice.
Conscience is currently focused on three areas of work:
- Network development, engagement, and support
- Challenges for discovery and benchmarking
- Investment in promising drug discovery projects
How We Work
Instead of a drug development model driven by the promise of significant profit, we rely on two key approaches.
Artificial intelligence:
To realize the potential of AI in drug discovery, we need collaboration among companies and researchers, to learn from each other, develop benchmarks and advance the best practices, and build tools that can meaningfully accelerate the process of discovery.
Open science:
This is true collaboration, bringing together companies, researchers, and institutions to exchange data and discoveries, avoid duplication and inefficiencies, and reduce costs.
Sharing our discoveries with the world
We will extend an open science approach as far along the drug development pathway as possible.
We will advance promising drug targets towards viable treatments, continuing to rely on collaboration to test and further perfect drug candidates. We will extend an open science approach as far along the drug development pathway as possible, minimizing the ways in which patents and exclusivity can hamper innovation.
In addition, we are developing new ways to bring drugs to market, using government regulatory restrictions instead of patents – working outside traditional intellectual property models – to make medicines more available and affordable.
We’re creating incentives to attract attention and investment in neglected areas like neurodegenerative diseases, pandemic preparedness, rare childhood diseases, and antimicrobial resistant bacteria – areas that often go unnoticed due to flaws in the current system. The end result will be more and faster innovation in AI drug discovery, new medicines, and more equitable access to medicines for everyone, across Canada and around the world.
Values
We make medical breakthroughs a team sport.
Equal access:
We believe access to medicine is a human right, regardless of financial status or location. So, we’re transforming markets and exploring new models to eliminate cost as a deciding factor to inventing and producing a life saving treatment.
Collaboration:
Breakthroughs aren’t borne out of silos. Conscience believes science is more efficient, effective, and accessible when scientists work together and develop open assets, data, and knowledge for all to use.
Empathy:
It can be easy to forget people’s humanity when you only see them through a microscope. We keep our focus on the people who rely on these life-saving discoveries.
New approaches:
We believe in adopting new methods to address old problems in medication creation and market failure. We work together to generate the right data in order to use AI for the public good.
Curiosity:
Great discoveries and new ideas will come from anywhere. We don’t expect people to be experts or evangelists of open science to begin to engage with us, and we seek out partners and collaborators wherever they may be – across diverse geographies, backgrounds, and industries.
