If industry shifts toward unbiased discovery, can academia align?

Whether research should be hypothesis-driven or hypothesis-free, meaning unbiased, is a long-standing debate in science. Tools that make the latter more feasible are now pushing industry to embrace it more, for its potential to yield unanticipated findings that are — arguably — more robust.

But that embrace creates a fault line between what could yield better results, and what academics are typically rewarded for. The divide was discussed by panelists at BioCentury Grand Rounds, which took place Sept. 9-11 in Nashville, Tenn., and brought together academic innovators, biopharma executives and investors...