Biography
Biography: David W Moskowitz
Abstract
Vertically integrated pharmaceutical companies, which flourished during the past 150 years, have merged into just a few giant companies in the US and Europe. They perform R&D, drug manufacturing, as well as sales and marketing. Although huge, the few companies left, like Pfizer, Merck, and Sanofi, can only develop a handful of drugs a year, since each drug costs over $1B to bring to market. But the various -omics ensure that there are more drug targets now than ever before. The few remaining research pharmaceutical companies have their hands full developing the 3 or 4 drugs they each have. Big Pharma no longer wants to joint venture with biotech companies to develop any additional drugs. This leaves room for many new entrants into the field: companies with targets and drugs they believe in, but no research pharmaceutical partners. Assuming $5-10M investment can be found (see above), how should it be spent to maximize value to the investor? The riskiest part of drug discovery and development is the preclinical phase. This is the part scientists love. It's also the least expensive. There are thousands of biologists and chemists in universities throughout the world who would be delighted to participate in drug discovery and early testing. Each lab would need only money for supplies; labor could be free, consisting of graduate students, post-docs, or even talented undergraduates. Collaborators could be found through PubMed. What academic scientist wouldn't be delighted to put a graduate student to work on a project that would bring a little more money into the lab? This should have special appeal for universities in developing countries, or schools in the First World which currently get little research support.