Interesting Newsweek Article

[patientx]

Why don't more medical discoveries become cures

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/15/desp ... cures.html

[cheerleader]

Great article, patient. Thanks for posting--seems like a new medical model is desperately needed.

If we are serious about rescuing potential new drugs from the valley of death, then academia, the NIH, and disease foundations will have to change how they operate. That is happening, albeit slowly. Private foundations such as the MMRF, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, and the Myelin Repair Foundation (for multiple sclerosis) have veered away from the NIH model of “here’s some money; go discover something.” Instead, they are managing and directing scientists more closely, requiring them to share data before it is published, cooperate, and do the nonsexy development work required after a discovery is made.

Scott Johnson of the Myelin Repair Foundation has a great new site for patient advocacy-
http://wherearethecures.org/
cheer

[patientx]

Great article, patient. Thanks for posting--seems like a new medical model is desperately needed.

If we are serious about rescuing potential new drugs from the valley of death, then academia, the NIH, and disease foundations will have to change how they operate. That is happening, albeit slowly. Private foundations such as the MMRF, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, and the Myelin Repair Foundation (for multiple sclerosis) have veered away from the NIH model of “here’s some money; go discover something.” Instead, they are managing and directing scientists more closely, requiring them to share data before it is published, cooperate, and do the nonsexy development work required after a discovery is made.

cheer

True, but unfortunately this might be uncharted waters, and there might be no model to build on. Maybe this is where big drug companies, with deep pockets and incentive to do the "grunt work" to see a drug through devlopement, are a necessary evil.

[Lyon]

.

[NHE]

I read the article and forwarded the link on to one of the research professors that I worked with in graduate school. Here is his reply...

I disagree with the article, from my perspective, basic science is not doing well. Now in order to get funding you have to do translational, read in vivo, research. Some of the best basic scientists I know cannot get funded. Now one of my colleagues is talking about doing in vivo first, i.e. dose the rat with drugs and measure behavior, then if that works, do the bench work. I think that is backwards and is going to lead to more stuff getting into the clinic for which we do not know the mechanism. Add on, most clinical trials are paid for by drug companies, so they will pay to test their new drugs regardless of whether it is the best treatment. Drugs and treatments they cannot make $$ on will not get into trials. We are fucked until Joe Sixpack and whomever he elects get their freekin' fingers out of research and let it go back to peer review so we have a good mix of basic and applied research. As it is now, it leans too far toward applied, so we don't learn enough about mechanism.

Oh well.

This reminds me of the old joke, "A drug is a substance which, when injected into a rat, will produce a scientific report." In contrast, the process of understanding the biology through basic research should lead to potential treatments knowing how the biology can be mechanistically altered in desirable ways for a particular disease.

NHE