4 ms·
Unlike the case in tech, pharma basic research is far less important in advancing our knowledge when compared to academia. A good example comes from the last fe
by ejstronge 9y ago
Unlike the case in tech, pharma basic research is far less important in advancing our knowledge when compared to academia. A good example comes from the last few blockbuster cancer therapies - CAR-T cells and checkpoint blockade all arose in academic labs.
Also, for drugs that do make it to market, efficacy and side effect information is published as a condition of drug approval, at least for new drugs.
Whether basic science research papers should be behind a paywall is a wholly separate issue, but the life science community largely shares its finished products. Indeed, there’s even a push to share early stage data, too.
- xiphias 9y agoThanks, this is the kind of answer I was looking for. It's just a bit sad that the companies rely so heavily on academia. About the papers on efficacy: I remember that I wanted to slice the efficacy data to customize it more to compute confidence intervals for my ex girlfriend's case who has breast cancer (BRCA2), but she didn't want to have hemotherapy and wanted to see if the drug can help in that case as well, but the raw data in the testing wasn't published.