Getting a drug to market (and into the hands of the doctors and patients) is about more than research. It's about time and money: TIME: 8 - 10 YEARS!! MONEY: > $500 MILLION. For one drug.
It involves years of clinical trials, and wading through the FDA (and other governments' regs and requirements) to "prove" safety and efficacy. While the research can, indeed, be done in the university labs, in the interest of "pure science", to get a compound from the discovery stage ("Hey, look what this does") to the product stage ("Take two and call me tomorrow") is a huge, expensive undertaking. At this point, the only entities that have the resources to pursue such a course are either governments or big pharmaceutical companies. Governments aren't interested in making products; and research monies are drying up - it's become extremely difficult to get research grants funded; university researchers I know have reported that only one in five or one in eight of their proposals get funded.
The logic is that without the exclusivity afforded by a patent (or some such protection) no one could be convinced to invest 100's of millions of dollars to bring a drug candidate to market.
Maybe flame bait, but that's what it is: development is expensive, way more so than the research that found the compound.
"Mr. Norrell's purpose is to restore magic to England, provided it is studied and practiced under his terms, and preferably by no one but him.
Jonathan Strange, a young man who stumbles upon magic on a whim, who is to become Norrell's colleague, student, and adversary, has something slightly different in mind. "
Speculation here - I haven't read the book... but this almost sounds like proprietary versus open source type of argument???
Sun: We've turned over a new leaf Stephen Shankland and Marguerite Reardon CNET News.com September 22, 2004, 08:20 BST
We didn't listen to customers, says Schwartz. Now, says the COO, Sun has had a change of heart
Sun Microsystems' executives have rarely been known for meekness, but the company's new chief operating officer took a tone of humility while arguing that the company has mended its ways.
<...edited...>
At the event, Sun announced a host of products and plans to try to seize the initiative from competitors, including IBM, Dell and Red Hat, that have gained customers at the expense of the Santa Clara, California-based server and software company. Among the new items: a plan to sell computing power for $1 per processor per hour; round-the-clock technical support for the Linux open-source operating; the new StorEdge 6920 midrange storage system; and a promotion that gives customers credits of between $560 and $1,250 for trading in servers with Intel Xeon processors for Sun servers with Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron chips.
------- so, they're going to outprice everybody, make 'em subscribe for "value-added" services, take on linux (that's open source, isn't it?), and open up Solarix as open source. Sounds like a focused business strategy to me!
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It involves years of clinical trials, and wading through the FDA (and other governments' regs and requirements) to "prove" safety and efficacy. While the research can, indeed, be done in the university labs, in the interest of "pure science", to get a compound from the discovery stage ("Hey, look what this does") to the product stage ("Take two and call me tomorrow") is a huge, expensive undertaking. At this point, the only entities that have the resources to pursue such a course are either governments or big pharmaceutical companies. Governments aren't interested in making products; and research monies are drying up - it's become extremely difficult to get research grants funded; university researchers I know have reported that only one in five or one in eight of their proposals get funded.
The logic is that without the exclusivity afforded by a patent (or some such protection) no one could be convinced to invest 100's of millions of dollars to bring a drug candidate to market.
Maybe flame bait, but that's what it is: development is expensive, way more so than the research that found the compound.
"Mr. Norrell's purpose is to restore magic to England, provided it is studied and practiced under his terms, and preferably by no one but him. Jonathan Strange, a young man who stumbles upon magic on a whim, who is to become Norrell's colleague, student, and adversary, has something slightly different in mind. " Speculation here - I haven't read the book... but this almost sounds like proprietary versus open source type of argument???
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020 390,39166542,00.htm
0 36 3,39167437,00.htm
Sun sets up open-source Solaris project
Martin LaMonica
CNET News.com
September 14, 2004, 11:05 BST
The company aims to be an 'innovative leader' in the developer community
Sun Microsystems will create an open-source project around its Solaris 10 operating system by the end of the year, company executives said on Monday.
<---remainder edited--->
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/servers/0,3902
Sun: We've turned over a new leaf
Stephen Shankland and Marguerite Reardon
CNET News.com
September 22, 2004, 08:20 BST
We didn't listen to customers, says Schwartz. Now, says the COO, Sun has had a change of heart
Sun Microsystems' executives have rarely been known for meekness, but the company's new chief operating officer took a tone of humility while arguing that the company has mended its ways.
<...edited...>
At the event, Sun announced a host of products and plans to try to seize the initiative from competitors, including IBM, Dell and Red Hat, that have gained customers at the expense of the Santa Clara, California-based server and software company. Among the new items: a plan to sell computing power for $1 per processor per hour; round-the-clock technical support for the Linux open-source operating; the new StorEdge 6920 midrange storage system; and a promotion that gives customers credits of between $560 and $1,250 for trading in servers with Intel Xeon processors for Sun servers with Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron chips.
-------
so, they're going to outprice everybody, make 'em subscribe for "value-added" services, take on linux (that's open source, isn't it?), and open up Solarix as open source. Sounds like a focused business strategy to me!