So, yesterday, I complained about all these pharma mergers.  Not because I am against mergers, but because the money being spent on these megadeals would be better focused on R&D (research and development).   Because we need more, better, longer-lasting drugs.

For more than a decade, big pharma has been struggling with this issue.  And, their own labs are not their saviors anymore- instead, their new drugs come from licensing or from taking over nascent firms.  I think the real problem is the adjective I use for the industry- “big”.  These firms are too busy building bureaucracies and too busy insuring the executives receive extraordinary pay (for ordinary results).

I recall one good example.  We had completed a research project on time and under budget.  (Yes, they have farmed out work for a long time; but we were the D part- not the R part.  And, we have a unique approach to clinical trials that works.  But, that’s not the issue here, anyway.)

We were to present our results and prognoses to the executives running R&D, as well as the top executives of the firm.  There were six people from our company from whom the client wanted to hear; the two senior folks involved in each aspect of this effort.  We priced the air fare from Charlottesville to  (sorry- the where will remain confidential, as shall the client name remain).  For six tickets, the air fare would have been 1.5X the cost of chartering an aircraft- and we would not have to change planes and we would arrive and return saving two hours of billing time.  (That’s 2 hours for each of the 6, or 12 hours.)  In other words, a very significant savings.  So, that’s the avenue (or is it the flight path?) we took.

We arrived as required, presented our results, entertained questions, and trained the staff in the final steps they would need to complete to insure their position in the marketplace.  To say our efforts were appreciated was the understatement of the year.  Until two weeks later, when our bill was being processed.

Our liaison, the Vice President, called to berate us for chartering the plane.  For not obtaining prior permission to do so.  Because ONLY the CEO of their firm was entitled to charter an aircraft or use private carriage.  Not because of insurance issues (we had our own insurance, as required by the contract between us), but just because of their “rules”.

No, it made no difference that they saved the equivalent of 1% of the budget for the two year project because we did this.   (It also meant we completed the entire program at 91% of expected costs).   That’s bureaucracy at its worst.

Back to the other problem with big pharma.  it’s one most people don’t realize.  Over the past years, our government has obliterated the research funding it had provided to NIH (National Institutes of Health), NSF (National Science Foundation), and our universities.  (Note that when I went to grad school, many of us were funded via NSF and/or NIH; that is no longer the norm.)

So, big pharma lacks clear understanding of the underlying  causes of many diseases.  Just like the recent study that showed providing “young” mice blood to the “old” mice let various brain functions become augmented, we have no clear understanding how the various factors work- or even what the factors are- that yield these results.  The same applies for much of the diseases that need viable therapies.

We need to fix this.  We need to have government get back into the pure science of health, disease, and a slew of issues from concrete to energy to climate and then some more. Because without the great science breakthroughs, business can’t develop their “competitive advantage”.  (Business does NOT do basic research.  It really never has.) Because so many of the hopefuls (the drugs or therapies that undergo testing) still fail.

Perhaps they fail because we don’t know enough about the underlying causes.  Perhaps they fail because our studies involve single diseases or health states with only one drug or therapy- which then fail when, as is true in real life, patients take multiple drugs, have multiple diseases, have other interactions that render the new therapy less than ideal.

And, the last problem is that big pharma spends big bucks.  So running multiple programs means tremendous caches of money are expended.  Which also means that only the MOST promising entry can proceed down the pipeline, because there isn’t enough money for multiple drugs in development.  They need those bucks for the executive salaries.

No, it’s not like with small biotech firms or small medtech firms, which have relied on the “Ready, Fire, Aim” strategy.  (I really can’t recall if this was the catchphrase of the first Inc 500 Conference (yes, we were one of the winners- or from Venture magazine [Arthur- do you recall?]).   But, as opposed to this philosophy- or the military’s “Ready, Aim, Fire”, it often seems that big pharma uses  “Ready, Ready, Ready, Aim, Aim….”

That’s not the way to develop new drugs or therapies.

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