Open Source Comes to Drug Development
It took NIH Director Francis Collins more than two years to wrangle the industry into cooperating. They brought in consultants to structure the $230 million project, which will be jointly funded by companies and the government; several companies and one mental disorder — schizophrenia — fell by the wayside in the process. It ended up being a remarkable arrangement for a sector that’s long been fiercely competitive, jealously guarding its intellectual property against would-be copycats: All the results they come up with will be open source. At the end of the project, which should lock in a basic understanding of how the diseases work, they’ll race to bring new drugs to market as fast as possible. (Lydia DePillis)
So how exactly does this work?
It appears they will work on cures together, but if costs are more I would think the drugs would cost more
Yeah the end result could prove their profit margin needing to be higher so the cost of the drugs might increase
“With the expiration of a bunch of blockbuster drugs, the pharmaceutical industry’s fat profits have slimmed, leaving less money to pour into research and development — especially when most drug trials ultimately fail, wasting millions of dollars and years of time.”
The rise of generics.
As more patents expire, many drugs will gain alternatives. Just like Lipitor recently did
“Resources have been pouring into cancer research for decades; the federal government has a whole Cancer Institute. These days, though, budgets for basic research are slimmer.”
Whatever’s popular gets the money.
Yeah and cancer has dominated with advertising. Susan G Komen rakes in millions every year
No one seems to mind that all of the money that goes to cancer research moves money away from other illnesses
“Ten drug companies had agreed to collaborate on curing four of the world’s most devastating diseases, which will affect millions of people in the coming years and have proven largely resistant to cures: Alzheimer’s, Type 2 diabetes, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.”
All drugs that will end up making millions of dollars
Probably billions
Alzheimer’s especially, we can hope cooperation will bring prices down, but if one is significantly ahead of the others it could damper the research
Yeah I don’t understand how one company could be in the lead and how it would allow the others new avenues of success.
Great post, its nice to see that things are finally changing in the pharmaceutical industry.
Just imagine if it all became open source.
We could see an influx of drugs, but usually for the wrong reasons
Just remember, millions went to research for viagra
Could this excerpt be any more breathless?
This is just the latest move by a group of people that has ideological objections to private drug development. It believes, without much proof, that government can do a better job and wants to use drug industry money to make it happen.
Derek Lowe of In the Pipeline has a fine commentary on the whole enterprise: “So, reluctantly, I’ll make a prediction: if years of effort and billions of dollars thrown after genetic target-based drug discovery hasn’t worked out, when done by people strongly motivated to make money off their work, then an NIH center focused on the same stuff will, in all likelihood, add very little more. It’s not like they won’t stay busy. That sort of work can soak up all the time and money that you can throw at it. And it will.”
For more see http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/02/01/the_nihs_new_drug_discovery_center_heading_into_the_swamp.php