Standardised and collaborative approaches to the development of tools to control infectious and zoonotic diseases in livestock using STAR IDAZ IRC roadmaps

The Strategic Alliance for Research into Infectious Diseases of Animals and Zoonoses (STAR IDAZ) International Research Consortium (IRC) is a global network of funders and scientists with interests in livestock health and wellbeing. STAR IDAZ IRC provides a unique platform for stakeholders to share knowledge, including disease briefs and research roadmaps, to prioritise research activities to accelerate the development of livestock disease control solutions and to maximise the impact of investment in research. The STAR IDAZ IRC research roadmaps are publicly available web-based resources to help focus research efforts towards development of vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics and knowledge, to underpin disease prevention and control. Crucial to the process of developing such products from research is effective communication and knowledge-sharing between academia, regulators, governments and private sectors that manufacture and deliver products. Here, we discuss some of the processes that can be adopted to improve the translation of research from laboratory stages to market, with a particular focus on vaccine development. This includes the development of target product profiles (TPPs) at early stages of research in consultation with all partners involved in the product development pipeline. We discuss ownership of the different stages of the pipeline and how to reduce the go-stop risk through awareness of the proof-of-concept (PoC) process that sits at the interface between academic research and commercial uptake. Finally, we provide an example of inter-dependency of the STAR IDAZ IRC vaccines, diagnostics and disease control roadmaps for integrated discrimination between infected and vaccinated animals (DIVA) control strategies.