Drug Development for Dummies

  • by: |
  • 11/16/2007
Jonathan Cohn, in an otherwise excellent and thoughtful piece in The New Republicv on how to shift health care systems to a value based reimbursement approach (from a single payer perspective) , resorts to the shibboleth that drug companies are not very innovative as if this is somehow their fault and by design. He relies on the totally useless work of Marcia Angell and Merrill Goozner, neither of whom know much about drug discovery and development and what they do write is selective and misleading.

First, if drug development and discovery were so easy it wouldn't be so expensive. Success rates have fallen not be design. Would any one want to invest $800 billion in a drug only to have it fail. But it happens all the the time. Incrementalism by the way is the norm of science and all things whereas the ability to use one medicine or insight to transform or extend life is rare indeed. Yet Cohn falls into the trap all amateurs fall into and believes that if drug or biotech companies tried a little harder they could nail it. That's arm chair quarterbacking at it's worst. If you think it's so easy to hit a Jaba Chamberlain splitter, why don't you try out for the Bosox and hit it not once every 1000 times but one out of three times. Hit .300 and you are in the Hall of Fame. My brother has worked for a drug company for 20 years and has 3 of the drugs he has worked on approved. That's a lot.

Now as to the heavy lifting. This notion that NIH discovers everything is just not true. The amount of collaboration is astounding and is what separates the US from other parts of the world. Angell and Goozner lie outright to avoid describing the partnerships that shape innovation in America and depict a Golden Age that never existed. Angell asserts that every breakthrough drug started without drug company involvement. She claims that Gleevec, the first cancer drug to target cancerous cells without side effects, was developed without any real input from Novartis, the company that makes the product. Angell says that Brian Druker, a cancer researcher at Oregon Health and Science University, said that Novartis showed little interest in the cancer compound until he discovered its tremendous properties. The real story--from the Journal of the National Cancer Institute--reflects the risky and collaborative nature of drug development, which requires massive capital and biopharmaceutical know-how to turn discoveries into effective treatments. An academic researcher and private company, working together, launched a revolution in the treatment of cancer. You wouldn't know it by reading Angell.

Goozner makes the same claim about drugs developed by Amgen. Everyone involved knows better.

Similarly both Goozner and Angell disdain the revolution in personalized medicine thereby ignoring genomic based science, something that Senator Obama has taken leadership on in the Senate along with Senator Richard Burr.

For instance, The Truth About the Drug Companies also claims there is no real evidence that any one drug is better than another or that most medicines really do much at all. And Angell goes as far as to say: "the idea that patients respond differently to me-too drugs is merely an untested and self-serving hypothesis." Rather, she says, "one or two drugs will do" for most medical conditions. And Goozner still can't figure out the difference between a surrogate end point like blood pressure and a genetic marker which both predicts and controls disease progression.

Cohn's article in the New Republic tries to argue that value based reimbursement can let people have the best of both worlds in a single payer system. I disagree. But he gets the point that health care is an investment and that innovation is valuable. I would recommend that he go beyond Goozner and Angell to understand the role the private sector plays in promoting innovation and just how difficult real invention is.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=53e206dd-c286-43b1-9c5b-079e81ab3474
CMPI

Center for Medicine in the Public Interest is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization promoting innovative solutions that advance medical progress, reduce health disparities, extend life and make health care more affordable, preventive and patient-centered. CMPI also provides the public, policymakers and the media a reliable source of independent scientific analysis on issues ranging from personalized medicine, food and drug safety, health care reform and comparative effectiveness.

Blog Roll

Alliance for Patient Access Alternative Health Practice
AHRP
Better Health
BigGovHealth
Biotech Blog
BrandweekNRX
CA Medicine man
Cafe Pharma
Campaign for Modern Medicines
Carlat Psychiatry Blog
Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry: A Closer Look
Conservative's Forum
Club For Growth
CNEhealth.org
Diabetes Mine
Disruptive Women
Doctors For Patient Care
Dr. Gov
Drug Channels
DTC Perspectives
eDrugSearch
Envisioning 2.0
EyeOnFDA
FDA Law Blog
Fierce Pharma
fightingdiseases.org
Fresh Air Fund
Furious Seasons
Gooznews
Gel Health News
Hands Off My Health
Health Business Blog
Health Care BS
Health Care for All
Healthy Skepticism
Hooked: Ethics, Medicine, and Pharma
Hugh Hewitt
IgniteBlog
In the Pipeline
In Vivo
Instapundit
Internet Drug News
Jaz'd Healthcare
Jaz'd Pharmaceutical Industry
Jim Edwards' NRx
Kaus Files
KevinMD
Laffer Health Care Report
Little Green Footballs
Med Buzz
Media Research Center
Medrants
More than Medicine
National Review
Neuroethics & Law
Newsbusters
Nurses For Reform
Nurses For Reform Blog
Opinion Journal
Orange Book
PAL
Peter Rost
Pharm Aid
Pharma Blog Review
Pharma Blogsphere
Pharma Marketing Blog
Pharmablogger
Pharmacology Corner
Pharmagossip
Pharmamotion
Pharmalot
Pharmaceutical Business Review
Piper Report
Polipundit
Powerline
Prescription for a Cure
Public Plan Facts
Quackwatch
Real Clear Politics
Remedyhealthcare
Shark Report
Shearlings Got Plowed
StateHouseCall.org
Taking Back America
Terra Sigillata
The Cycle
The Catalyst
The Lonely Conservative
TortsProf
Town Hall
Washington Monthly
World of DTC Marketing
WSJ Health Blog