Comments on: Are Drug Companies Faking an Innovation Crisis? Uh, No.

By: Geack

Geack — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 19:45:31 +0000

@10. Lon Jones,
“…which allows us to use the placebo effect.” Placebos don’t DO anything. The placebo effect is the tendency of some people to occassionally be briefly less bothered by their symptoms after experiencing something they believe might help. Since you get placebo effects both from treatments known to work and from treatments not known to work, it’s unethical to try to invoke a placebo effect from a treatment not know to work. You’re basically conning the patient into thinking something’s changed for a little while without even attempting to address the cause of the symptom.

By: Geack

Geack — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 19:29:28 +0000

@3. Plato,
“Consciousness” can cure diseases, therefore consciousness-altering drugs might cure more disease? C’mon… your basic thesis is contradicted by all of human history, in which people who really really believe they can and should live have died from disease. Some people experience remission for the same reasons only some people in a given place catch the flu – bodies are massively complicated and constantly changing, disease vectors vary in dose, potency, and susceptibility, and we have built-in systems that try to fix problems. Sometimes everything lines up right, even unexpectedly. It’s not due to their superior “consciousness”. Positive attitude is completely irrelevant beyond maintaining the basic will to live that keeps you eating enough to give your body a chance. Whatever mind-over-matter nonsense you’re teasing in your post, please don’t confuse it with medicine.

By: AsiaFan

AsiaFan — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 14:05:44 +0000

I am only a layperson with regard to this industry, but my father was in this industry and I saw how difficult it can be. Thank you for posting this article.

By: Ken Rubenstein

Ken Rubenstein — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 17:20:04 +0000

I’ve never worked in pharma, but as an analyst/journalist I’ve interviewed scores of pharma researchers and others in the drug discovery world, and it’s TOTALLY obvious to me that the innovation deficit is very real. There several reasons for it, but the main one is that pharmas, grown huge by mergers (which they did to compensate for the innovation deficit), felt they had to tackle common, chronic diseases that are poorly understood in terms that are translatable to drug discovery. Basic research on genomes, cells, and tissues probably needs another decade or more before pharmas have enough info to address these illnesses in rational and predictable ways. Until then, the marketing types will be forced to struggle for company survival (not assured) by hook or crook. Caveat emptor!!

You see, in the capitalist system (not that I’m in love with all aspects of it), companies need to make every effort to generate returns for their shareholders or the class action lawyers get busy doing their thing.

By: Uncle Al

Uncle Al — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 00:07:28 +0000

Human Resources (Personnel) specifically does not hire the kind of mutant smart, obnoxiously creative, Asperger-Google kind of guy who could save you. HR hires mediocrities acceptable as drinking buddies. Management exists to kill the future, for the only trusted employee is one whose sole marketable asset is loyalty. At every level of education, rather than foster brilliance we allocate for its suppression. The behaviorally and especially the intellectually aggressive male must be destroyed as national social policy.

Compassion-building exercise: How many bad hires are needed to sum to one Manhattan Project? There’s your problem – deformed decisions, administrative soft despotism; a tyranny of immersive falsehoods. Physical reality only has one vote. It’s a whopper.

By: orthodoc

orthodoc — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 23:39:21 +0000

“If drug companies were more transparent about their finances, these ‘assumptions’ wouldn’t need to be made. But they’ve always refused to.”

Right. No way any of these companies would ever, you know, put their financial data on line where the public could look at it.

Whoops, I guess they do. Here you go. Have fun.

http://www.pfizer.com/investors/sec_filings/sec_filings.jsp

http://www.pfizer.com/investors/financial_reports/financial_reports.jsp

http://www.pfizer.com/investors/ceo_cfo_certifications/ceo_cfo_certifications.jsp

http://www.pfizer.com/investors/presentations/presentations.jsp

By: Lon Jones

Lon Jones — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 16:47:48 +0000

When I started practicing a new drug cost about a million, then three, then seven, and now 43. WOW! That escalation beats inflation all to pieces. Likely is a close reflection, however, of the growth in our understanding of human complexity. If regulating agencies demand that every ‘i’ be dotted and every ‘t’ crossed in demonstrating safety and efficacy and the blossoming of those elements continues with every new technology we do indeed have a problem. Analyzing complex systems is what this game is all about, and it doesn’t work; there are too many connections. Complex systems are best predicted by computer modeling; weather being the best example. Lots of luck modeling human complexity, however; throw in the characteristic of adaptability and even good computer models don’t have a chance. The solution we discuss in our book, The Boids and the Bees, is to look only at safety for drugs–which allows us to use the placebo effect. And we also need to honor Plato’s POV and allow more drugs used wisely and well.

By: AJ

AJ — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 04:51:40 +0000

Gee, I wonder what pharmaceutical companies did before they were allowed to advertise prescription drugs directly to the general public in the US. Oh that’s right, they DIDN’T spend billions on advertisement campaigns and because of that, prescription drugs cost less. Now we have drugs like Humira which cost $15,000 a year – or even more! – in the US.

Also, why is it that a drug like Humira costs so much more in the US than in ANY other country? Go to Finland, Canada, Germany, UK, etc. and Humira is considerably less expensive. There’s only a few possibilities as to why – and none of them are good news for US patients.

By: Kaviani

Kaviani — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 17:21:43 +0000

The problem with this industry is very much the same with others. Execs are demanding profit and refusing to pay any more than they did before. Increase productivity w/o costs. That amounts to serious layoffs, halfass outsourcing, and general devolution simply to increase bottom lines. Innovation is secondary to profit, because profits can be “made” without it.

The vigorous lobbying (leading to dubious FDA fasttracking *in some instances*) and marketing around certain companies coupled with good ol’ American paranoia work in tandem to create the distrust of pharmaceuticals. Just check the anti-vax freaks if you want a bellweather.

By: Assorted links

Assorted links — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 15:37:55 +0000

[...] 4. Dining in Wichita, and the innovation crisis in pharmaceuticals. [...]