3 ms·
> Drugs fail all the time, most of the time rather quietly, and all the work and money that went into them just sort of vanishes. This seems problematic to me.
by dna_polymerase 7y ago
> Drugs fail all the time, most of the time rather quietly, and all the work and money that went into them just sort of vanishes.
This seems problematic to me. Wouldn't it be generally preferable to publish everything about their work so others can learn from it? Obviously big pharma would be against that, but in the general pursuit of advancing medicine it would help, so federal regulation?
- chris5745 7y agoI was thinking similar thoughts. I imagine a lot of efforts are duplicated in all industries. New players have to make many of the same mistakes established players made, and this is part of the barrier to entry. Someone could potentially make a killing managing a marketplace for buying and selling failed industrial results. We learn from mistakes. If it were cheaper to learn from others’ mistakes than make them anew, this could have huge benefits for everyone. But it would have to be very enticing for the established players.
- jcranmer 7y agoDerek is speaking here about how the effort is vanishing in the public eye. But if you're someone doing research on a drug target, these sorts of failures are going to be visible to you when you do searches for previous attempts or approaches at the problem, at least if they advance as far as initial clinical trials.
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoA drug failing doesn't mean a company can't do work improving it or building on top of it