4 ms·

They're going to cure heart disease, not write the next snapchat. I bet in most states and most cities it'll buy you a lab and 50 staff and enough goods for a w

by tinco 11y ago

They're going to cure heart disease, not write the next snapchat. I bet in most states and most cities it'll buy you a lab and 50 staff and enough goods for a while. They won't have to actually produce the cure, just develop enough theory and experiments to convince investors to drop a billion on them for going through everything that's needed for human testing.

InvisibleCities 11y ago
>They're going to cure heart disease, not write the next snapchat. Are you suggesting that curing heart disease is an easier and cheaper endeavor than building a mobile app for sharing photos?
nugget 11y ago
Statins alone are a >$10b annual market, down from $20b annually before Lipitor's patent expired. Pharma companies have proven that curative treatments can be priced near the net present value of all future disease management costs, making cures the most lucrative area of pharma (a good thing if it leads to more of them). There are billions of private dollars being sunk into heart disease annually. I'm not sure exactly what Google is after here but $50m is not going to move the needle from a funding or incentive perspective.
- tinco 11y ago
  The way I understood the Google X moonshot strategy is that they put the money behind some idea that seems farfetched or unorthodox. I fully understand $50M doesn't mean anything to the industry as a whole, but you can't tell me it wouldn't impact any single early-stage idea or research direction. Google is not looking to fund heart disease research in general, they're going to fund one particular potential solution. One that's probably not seeing any of that $20B at this moment. Probably because the idea is farfetched, risky and potentially not financially viable.
- randcraw 11y ago
  Right. "Heart Disease" is a huge space of medical pathologies, from atherosclerosis to stenosis to cardiomyopathy to abnormal signal creation / propagation to so much more. Hoping to "cure" any one of these is a goal greater than even a giant pharma or major medical research institute would entertain, especially in just 5 years. If creating the average new drug to merely treat a disease usually costs an experienced pharma between $2B and $6B, then $50M quite simply will not "cure heart disease". To suggest otherwise is akin to promising a miracle cure to a dying child's mother. It's either clueless or manipulative. Let's hope that foolish verbiage arose from careless reporting, and not from Google.
jonlucc 11y ago
Not really. I'd guess a PI and 2 associates in each lab would run $325k. A single drug will touch about 8 or 10 labs in the 4 or so years to get out of pre-clinical development. Without any benefits, managers, equipment, lab space, or animals, you're already eating $10 million. Monkey tox studies are expensive and required before human trials. I'd guess that it'd take 50 capital equipment pieces averaging somewhere around $150k. The barrier to entry is pretty high.
jacquesm 11y ago
> They're going to cure heart disease, not write the next snapchat. Precisely. Which do you think is the more difficult one?
- tinco 11y ago
  Indeed.
firebones 11y ago
> just develop enough theory and experiments to convince investors to drop a billion on them for going through everything that's needed for human testing. Not even close. The Stowers Institute for Medical Research [0] is a good comparison for how to do it right--$2 billion donated over a decade gets you in the door of creating a sustainable entity, facility and environment that has a chance of attracting the kind of top scientists (and their staffs) to do the type of basic research you describe. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stowers_Institute_for_Medical_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stowers_Institute_for_Medical_...

by tinco 11y ago

InvisibleCities 11y ago

>They're going to cure heart disease, not write the next snapchat. Are you suggesting that curing heart disease is an easier and cheaper endeavor than building a mobile app for sharing photos?

nugget 11y ago

Statins alone are a >$10b annual market, down from $20b annually before Lipitor's patent expired. Pharma companies have proven that curative treatments can be priced near the net present value of all future disease management costs, making cures the most lucrative area of pharma (a good thing if it leads to more of them). There are billions of private dollars being sunk into heart disease annually. I'm not sure exactly what Google is after here but $50m is not going to move the needle from a funding or incentive perspective.

tinco 11y ago
The way I understood the Google X moonshot strategy is that they put the money behind some idea that seems farfetched or unorthodox. I fully understand $50M doesn't mean anything to the industry as a whole, but you can't tell me it wouldn't impact any single early-stage idea or research direction. Google is not looking to fund heart disease research in general, they're going to fund one particular potential solution. One that's probably not seeing any of that $20B at this moment. Probably because the idea is farfetched, risky and potentially not financially viable.
randcraw 11y ago
Right. "Heart Disease" is a huge space of medical pathologies, from atherosclerosis to stenosis to cardiomyopathy to abnormal signal creation / propagation to so much more. Hoping to "cure" any one of these is a goal greater than even a giant pharma or major medical research institute would entertain, especially in just 5 years. If creating the average new drug to merely treat a disease usually costs an experienced pharma between $2B and $6B, then $50M quite simply will not "cure heart disease". To suggest otherwise is akin to promising a miracle cure to a dying child's mother. It's either clueless or manipulative. Let's hope that foolish verbiage arose from careless reporting, and not from Google.

jonlucc 11y ago

Not really. I'd guess a PI and 2 associates in each lab would run $325k. A single drug will touch about 8 or 10 labs in the 4 or so years to get out of pre-clinical development. Without any benefits, managers, equipment, lab space, or animals, you're already eating $10 million. Monkey tox studies are expensive and required before human trials. I'd guess that it'd take 50 capital equipment pieces averaging somewhere around $150k. The barrier to entry is pretty high.

jacquesm 11y ago

> They're going to cure heart disease, not write the next snapchat. Precisely. Which do you think is the more difficult one?

tinco 11y ago
Indeed.

firebones 11y ago

> just develop enough theory and experiments to convince investors to drop a billion on them for going through everything that's needed for human testing. Not even close. The Stowers Institute for Medical Research [0] is a good comparison for how to do it right--$2 billion donated over a decade gets you in the door of creating a sustainable entity, facility and environment that has a chance of attracting the kind of top scientists (and their staffs) to do the type of basic research you describe. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stowers_Institute_for_Medical_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stowers_Institute_for_Medical_...