The process is entirely different. Old-school drug companies have a very formulaic approach: 1) find lucrative disease, 2) find small molecule that abates dise

The process is entirely different. Old-school drug companies have a very formulaic approach: 1) find lucrative disease, 2) find small molecule that abates disease, 3) get it through FDA, 4) market & sell. A much more modern approach is to figure out what kills people (heart disease, atherosclerosis, muscular & neural degeneration, loss of immune system) and fix that. Build a new immune system, figure out how to 'plumb' one's blood vessels, or '3d-print' new ones. Stem-cell & regenerative medicine can make new, and sometimes even improved, organs. The technologies of the second kind were only fanciful pipe-dreams 30 years ago when the old-school pharma companies came about. And a few still are today. But many are not. We can actually do meaningful research into designing these complex tissues today that would entirely obviate the old way pharma does business. As someone who does tissue engineering & synthetic biology it's a bit telling to see big money come in from a different field and latch onto old-school 'names' rather than new-school 'ideas'. Calico really could be something truly spectacular - but it has to be careful who it sets at its helm...