4 ms·

If you could run a drug development company like you do a start-up, then you could probably speed up drug development 1000x fold. Of course, still need to have

If you could run a drug development company like you do a start-up, then you could probably speed up drug development 1000x fold. Of course, still need to have some safety mechanisms in place to prevent serious injury/death, but there is a gigantic room for improvement that will benefit humankind.

daxfohl 10y ago
Unfortunately the only ones running drug development companies like startups have been snake oil salesmen since time began. The only comfort lies in that big pharma is only ~ 1/2 snake oil.
- dalke 10y ago
  And the many failed attempts to do drug discovery have earned such optimistic views the sobriquet "the Andy Grove Fallacy." http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2015/04/02/silicon_valley_sunglasses http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2015/04/02/sil... and https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Andy-Grove-fallacy https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Andy-Grove-fallacy for details.
- vibrio 10y ago
  Isn't a significant proprtion of the products Big Pharma sells were developed by start ups? based on my undestanding it is hard to claim that Pharma like Sanofi and Pfizer have good track records at internally discovering and bringing drugs to market despite spending billions annually on R&D.
  - evgen 10y ago
    At this point big pharma companies are more like Google or Facebook -- all real innovation comes from buying up the little start-ups that actually create something new and using your existing channel to customers to hone the product and crank up distribution.
mtgx 10y ago
So what you're asking for is the "Uber of pharma".
kgwgk 10y ago
PD-1 inhibitors got to the market in 2014. Development of these drugs started around 10 years before, based on research about the mechanism of action going back to the nineties. How do you think a "start-up" could do that in one or two weeks?
Thriptic 10y ago
Do you want your drug company to move fast and break things? I agree that there probably are ways to shorten various aspects of drug development, but fundamentally you are talking about a highly regulated, potentially dangerous product. At the end of the day, the businesses cannot behave like software startups as the stakes are totally different and the systems they are operating in (humans) are orders of magnitude more complex than computers.
- 2close4comfort 10y ago
  But humans are treated worse, how many drugs have killed people because the Company exploited a problem and underestimated the affects on larger popualtions (or just didnt care).
  - Ralfp 10y ago
    This isn't an excuse to carry on.
    - 2close4comfort 10y ago
      No it is a reason to change
  - Thriptic 10y ago
    I don't really see how this is related to my comment?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
2close4comfort 10y ago
Where is the safety now? I think you would be able to move much faster than traditional Companies and be safe, Open Sourcing would start to remove the veil of Patents that prevent people from actually getting products they need. Imagine an open source 3d printable epinephrine injector that was refillable...or with enough public support purchasing other patents to drugs and OS'ing that lot eliminating the burn the US pricing method, by flooding the market with comparable items synthesized as needed.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  You are giving way too much credit to patents for the state of the pharmaceutical market. Even if you were given all of the relevant IP free and unrestricted it would still cost at least a couple hundred million to bring it to market, assuming you already have the facilities to create and manufacture the compound. On top of that. things like "open source 3d printable epinephrine injector[s]" are a very dangerous pipe dream. While there is certainly regulatory capture involved, most of the regulations relating to development, manufacturing, and distribution of pharmaceuticals and medical devices are in place for good reasons.
  - 2close4comfort 10y ago
    to the control the market...
    - Ralfp 10y ago
      Yes. Do you know what happens when drug market isn't controlled? You end with drugs that are roughtly what they are declared, but upon analysis turn to contain few percent of impurities that may be toxic or plainly fatal. This is everyday of illegal drug import from east to west in Europe, but thanks to Shengen EU's border saw some tightening in recent years, and so number of "cheaper alternative drugs" is at minimum these days.
      - 2close4comfort 10y ago

daxfohl 10y ago

Unfortunately the only ones running drug development companies like startups have been snake oil salesmen since time began. The only comfort lies in that big pharma is only ~ 1/2 snake oil.

dalke 10y ago
And the many failed attempts to do drug discovery have earned such optimistic views the sobriquet "the Andy Grove Fallacy." http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2015/04/02/silicon_valley_sunglasses http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2015/04/02/sil... and https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Andy-Grove-fallacy https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Andy-Grove-fallacy for details.
vibrio 10y ago
Isn't a significant proprtion of the products Big Pharma sells were developed by start ups? based on my undestanding it is hard to claim that Pharma like Sanofi and Pfizer have good track records at internally discovering and bringing drugs to market despite spending billions annually on R&D.
- evgen 10y ago
  At this point big pharma companies are more like Google or Facebook -- all real innovation comes from buying up the little start-ups that actually create something new and using your existing channel to customers to hone the product and crank up distribution.

mtgx 10y ago

So what you're asking for is the "Uber of pharma".

kgwgk 10y ago

PD-1 inhibitors got to the market in 2014. Development of these drugs started around 10 years before, based on research about the mechanism of action going back to the nineties. How do you think a "start-up" could do that in one or two weeks?

Thriptic 10y ago

Do you want your drug company to move fast and break things? I agree that there probably are ways to shorten various aspects of drug development, but fundamentally you are talking about a highly regulated, potentially dangerous product. At the end of the day, the businesses cannot behave like software startups as the stakes are totally different and the systems they are operating in (humans) are orders of magnitude more complex than computers.

2close4comfort 10y ago
But humans are treated worse, how many drugs have killed people because the Company exploited a problem and underestimated the affects on larger popualtions (or just didnt care).
- Ralfp 10y ago
  This isn't an excuse to carry on.
  - 2close4comfort 10y ago
    No it is a reason to change
- Thriptic 10y ago
  I don't really see how this is related to my comment?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

2close4comfort 10y ago

Where is the safety now? I think you would be able to move much faster than traditional Companies and be safe, Open Sourcing would start to remove the veil of Patents that prevent people from actually getting products they need. Imagine an open source 3d printable epinephrine injector that was refillable...or with enough public support purchasing other patents to drugs and OS'ing that lot eliminating the burn the US pricing method, by flooding the market with comparable items synthesized as needed.

vonmoltke 10y ago
You are giving way too much credit to patents for the state of the pharmaceutical market. Even if you were given all of the relevant IP free and unrestricted it would still cost at least a couple hundred million to bring it to market, assuming you already have the facilities to create and manufacture the compound. On top of that. things like "open source 3d printable epinephrine injector[s]" are a very dangerous pipe dream. While there is certainly regulatory capture involved, most of the regulations relating to development, manufacturing, and distribution of pharmaceuticals and medical devices are in place for good reasons.
- 2close4comfort 10y ago
  to the control the market...
  - Ralfp 10y ago
    Yes. Do you know what happens when drug market isn't controlled? You end with drugs that are roughtly what they are declared, but upon analysis turn to contain few percent of impurities that may be toxic or plainly fatal. This is everyday of illegal drug import from east to west in Europe, but thanks to Shengen EU's border saw some tightening in recent years, and so number of "cheaper alternative drugs" is at minimum these days.
    - 2close4comfort 10y ago