5 ms·

You're telling me that if the research was just put out there, it like, wouldn't get used? You're obviously a very intelligent person but your extended rationa

by woah 12y ago

You're telling me that if the research was just put out there, it like, wouldn't get used? You're obviously a very intelligent person but your extended rationalizations sound silly. Just come out and say it: "we work hard to make a buck off our research".

refurb 12y ago
Without an ability to get a return on investment, no, companies would not invest the $0.5B to $1.0B to get a drug to market.
- samch 12y ago
  ^ This
  - themartorana 12y ago
    Returns on investment are the highest of almost any industry. Let's stop pretending drug company profits are a nail biting razor thin margin. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223
    - refurb 12y ago
      Returns on investment are the highest of almost any industry. For the established companies with a portfolio full of successful products. You're ignoring all of the investment money that goes into products that don't sell at all.
samch 12y ago
So, let's say you worked hard for decades to invent something like a new drug. You're telling me you wouldn't want anything from that? Fine, publish your paper without disclosing your invention to us. Your choice. In all likelihood, big pharma will avoid that technology, as it cannot be protected to any degree that would give them the assurance that their considerable investment would be worth it. So, now your discovery won't help patients and make the impact you wanted. For some reason, however, our researchers don't seem to pick that approach. They'd much rather work with us to get their work to a place where it can make a difference, and it's only fair that they get rewarded for that.
- dudifordMann 12y ago
  I would think that if one enters into an academic research position, it is for the explicit benefit of that person's chosen field, or humanity at large. If that person wants to privately benefit from their hard work, than I would think they would either work in an R&D department, such as one for Big Pharma, or start their own business. Side note: again in this example, there seems to be an underlying issue in believing that Big Pharma is the only enabler of distributing the benefits discovered. I understand that knowledge is power, and I grant that I don't know alot about the policies behind public institutions and funding resources, but there seems to be a rather problematic conflict in what you're saying.
  - samch 12y ago
    There's a big difference between the types of research that big pharma and academia undertake. To be very general about it, corporate R&D is a lower-risk endeavor. They focus on getting reasonably-well-proven ideas to market. For them, there is always a clear end game of passing the regulatory hurdles, ramping up manufacturing, and handling distribution and marketing efforts. In academia, researchers don't typically set out with an end game like that. They see a set of problems, and they want to test hypotheses to see if they can find ways to solve those problems. Again, in the most general sense, they aren't think entrepreneurially about scaling their technology or clearing various FDA milestones. They've done the hard part in terms of isolating the proteins or synthesizing compounds. Maybe they've even run preliminary tests to prove efficacy in certain ways. For our researchers, their next step isn't to cash out. They want to get more funding for their labs to hire more postdocs to investigate more hypotheses and get more work published. No, they never complain when their piece of the pie trickles down to them from all of the royalty splits and cost recoveries. Still, that's not what they live for. We have had a few researchers make the leap to the corporate world after their ideas have been proven, but that's definitely an exception. The important part here is that these inventors never know ahead of time if their ideas will ever pan out or get of of their lab. It's all a big risk. They apply for grants, the government reviews those applications, they decide if the risk is worth it based on a number of factors, and if all works out the researcher gets a chance to prove out their ideas. This early-stage, high-risk investigation is really rare in corporate R&D. In fact, even after some of our technologies have received traction and attention, there is often still too much risk for big pharma to jump on board. In recent years, we've had to get creative with funding sources and early-stage VCs to build startups around certain technologies we believe in just to get them to the point that a bigger partner is willing to jump in.

by woah 12y ago

refurb 12y ago

Without an ability to get a return on investment, no, companies would not invest the $0.5B to $1.0B to get a drug to market.

samch 12y ago
^ This
- themartorana 12y ago
  Returns on investment are the highest of almost any industry. Let's stop pretending drug company profits are a nail biting razor thin margin. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223
  - refurb 12y ago
    Returns on investment are the highest of almost any industry. For the established companies with a portfolio full of successful products. You're ignoring all of the investment money that goes into products that don't sell at all.

samch 12y ago

So, let's say you worked hard for decades to invent something like a new drug. You're telling me you wouldn't want anything from that? Fine, publish your paper without disclosing your invention to us. Your choice. In all likelihood, big pharma will avoid that technology, as it cannot be protected to any degree that would give them the assurance that their considerable investment would be worth it. So, now your discovery won't help patients and make the impact you wanted. For some reason, however, our researchers don't seem to pick that approach. They'd much rather work with us to get their work to a place where it can make a difference, and it's only fair that they get rewarded for that.

dudifordMann 12y ago
I would think that if one enters into an academic research position, it is for the explicit benefit of that person's chosen field, or humanity at large. If that person wants to privately benefit from their hard work, than I would think they would either work in an R&D department, such as one for Big Pharma, or start their own business. Side note: again in this example, there seems to be an underlying issue in believing that Big Pharma is the only enabler of distributing the benefits discovered. I understand that knowledge is power, and I grant that I don't know alot about the policies behind public institutions and funding resources, but there seems to be a rather problematic conflict in what you're saying.
- samch 12y ago
  There's a big difference between the types of research that big pharma and academia undertake. To be very general about it, corporate R&D is a lower-risk endeavor. They focus on getting reasonably-well-proven ideas to market. For them, there is always a clear end game of passing the regulatory hurdles, ramping up manufacturing, and handling distribution and marketing efforts. In academia, researchers don't typically set out with an end game like that. They see a set of problems, and they want to test hypotheses to see if they can find ways to solve those problems. Again, in the most general sense, they aren't think entrepreneurially about scaling their technology or clearing various FDA milestones. They've done the hard part in terms of isolating the proteins or synthesizing compounds. Maybe they've even run preliminary tests to prove efficacy in certain ways. For our researchers, their next step isn't to cash out. They want to get more funding for their labs to hire more postdocs to investigate more hypotheses and get more work published. No, they never complain when their piece of the pie trickles down to them from all of the royalty splits and cost recoveries. Still, that's not what they live for. We have had a few researchers make the leap to the corporate world after their ideas have been proven, but that's definitely an exception. The important part here is that these inventors never know ahead of time if their ideas will ever pan out or get of of their lab. It's all a big risk. They apply for grants, the government reviews those applications, they decide if the risk is worth it based on a number of factors, and if all works out the researcher gets a chance to prove out their ideas. This early-stage, high-risk investigation is really rare in corporate R&D. In fact, even after some of our technologies have received traction and attention, there is often still too much risk for big pharma to jump on board. In recent years, we've had to get creative with funding sources and early-stage VCs to build startups around certain technologies we believe in just to get them to the point that a bigger partner is willing to jump in.