Open Innovation

How to get away from Attrition – Roche’s J.J. Garaud at MipTec yesterday September 24, 2010

Like most of us,  Roche is thinking about how to boost innovaiton!

The facts are somewhat frigthening: Currently, 4500 drugs in clinical trials of which app. app. 40 gets approved. Meanwhile, R&D expenditure keeps rising, now trippeled during the last few decades.

What is Roche’s answer? Well, I was very pleased to hear how the Pharma Research and Early Development division, which Garaud leads, is resetting their strategy on several fronts:

1. Bringing Systems Biology, Modeling & Simulation, Translational Medicine and Biomarkers to the centre stage. Garaud said that these new disciplines having emerged over the last years now have to be at the centre of early R&D.  So much more knowledge and lower attrition could be expected from this – and he gave some interesting examples from Roche’s own R&D.

 Spot on. Focus on learning and understanding targets and disease biology – move away from milestone driven R&D, which does not necessarily lead to the right experimentsd being performed in due time.

2. Focus more on External Innovaiton. Bring in more fro mthe outside. Garaud clearly said that most of the innovation is out there. While I did not hear him talk about Open Innvoation, it was clear that Roche will be looking for evenb stronger external paretnering across the globe.

3. Strong collaboraiton between the Pharma and Diagnostics divisions. Roche is in a ratehr unique positions thanks to Roche Diagnostics. While co-developing diagnostic tools (another example from Roche’s oncology pipeline showed how dedicated Roche is to this approach) seems to be viable in oncology, we still have to find ways forward for such progress in other therapeutic areas.

4. Approach selection of treatment modality  from several angles. Small molecules, antibodies, RNAi, peptides, therapeutic stem cells a.o.  Garaud was clear that we will see much more coming in terms of new modalities, and gave examples of SiRNA projects and efforts around new RNA delivery systems.

All this is excellent, and may very well be the solution from Roche. I would welcome discussions on which other possible changes would help creating more and better medicines/treatments.

Journal of Visualized Medicine – a new way to communicate science! September 23, 2010

This is rather cool. The Journal of Visualized Medicine, JOVE. Check it out.

A very good idea, and intuitively easier for people to access than the rather old-fashioned written journals….

BioCurious: A Hackerspace for Biotech. The Community Lab for Citizen Science September 22, 2010

Check this interesting site! I just learned about this new phenomenon – will be cuirious to see how this evolves!

Ready for Open Innovaiton? September 22, 2010

As OI has been on the agenda for quite some time now, I am still doubting Pharma’s readiness. I do not see great progress, and it seems tougher than ever to get our industry to change path.

Why is this?

First, pharma sales keep increasing, and as the curve goes up, the willingness to change IP or business model goes down.

Second, as of yet, the “old IP” models is firmly established and also the basis of almost all pharma deals. As no alernative IP model has gained leadway yet, the old model will continue to drive business. I see a certain need for governmental proactivity to think through a better IP model.

Third, a sigificant change in capacity and objectives of regulatory authorities will be necessary. As we may have come to the end of single target drug discovery (I do not beleive significant therapeutic advances will be made with single target drugs), the obvious need for thinking pathways and develop multi-target drugs will create new regulatory challenges. It is key that regulators see this, and join forces with academia as well as pharma to overcome these.

I am aware that OI is not the only answer. It is in fact a significant challenge, and may have to move from conceptual thinking to real-life examples. For many people, it has the same fuzziness around it as e.g. “systems biology”. It sounds new and hot, but what does it mean?

Well, until we start seeing real pioneering companies jumping borders, it may very well remain like this.

I invite comments/view points to this blog.

DNA logic gates herald injectable computers June 2, 2010

Very interesting article on new logic gates which are formed from short strands of DNA and their complementary strands.  In conjunction with simple molecular machinery they mimic their electronic equivalent.

“The biocomputer would sense biomarkers and immediately react by releasing counter-agents for the disease,” says Itamar Willner of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, who led the work.

Interesting development in new materials for nanosensors May 30, 2010

In a recent paper in Nature Materials,  Dae-Hyeong Kim and Jonathan Viventi describe a material strategy for a type of bio-interfaced system that relies on ultrathin electronics supported by bioresorbable substrates of silk fibroin. This is an important step towards new, implantable nanoelectrodes/nanosensors which will adapt to small structures (e.g. kapillaries).

Do we embrace Open Innovation in Pharma R&D? May 29, 2010

Is Big Pharma embracing Open Innovation?  Is there a clear trend in change og business model? Maybe not yet, but increasingly, I see new initiatives and more resources being allocated. Take a look at GSK’s Innovation Site. This is a good examle of how even larger pharma companies is attempting to introduce OI.  I have talked at several meetings on this topic during the last years, and I sense an increasing interest in discusing and learning about how OI could increase pharma innovation and ultimately productivity.

As the hurdle is constantly increasing for requirements to get new drugs approved and also priced in a benefcial way, we find ourselves in a situaiton where new molecles have to be significantly beter and clearly add value (clinical and economical) to patients/society. It is no longer enough to claim “first in class” as the key feature. It is no longer only a question of getting to market as fast as possible. It is a question of adding value to the costumers. And value, which they will accept paying for.

Still, it seems to me, the fundamental path forward for pharma R&D is still rather old-school, linear and driven by traditional thinking.

We will debate this further in Montreux in June, and hopefully we will get some good insights into what is currently happening in the field.

Good report from the Economist on Innovation April 16, 2010

I found this report in The Economist worthwhile reading.

Wireless Medicine – and the Integrated Health Care Solution April 13, 2010

There is little doubt that as the ability to send high amounts of data wirelessly increases even further, the ability to link patients up to knowledge-centers, diagnostic centers, physicians and special clinics will redefine medicine as we know it. In fact, it is already happening. The newly launched tablets may further help this progress.

As new business are emerging in health care diagnostics/monitoring (e.g. increasingly smaller devices to ensure coninous health momnitoring) as well as full genome sequencing and councelling made possible for almosteveryone within a year or so, the pharmaceutical industry will have a unique chance to redifine its business model.

The drug itself will no longer be the only key for a successful brand. It will be the ability to integrate the medicine with the surrounding technology; compliance monitoring, continous health care / biomarker surveillance, increased understanding of the underlying biological networks and how disturbances in these leads to early signs of potential chronic desease (further enabling the concept of early intervention and network-restoration in contrast to treatment of symptomps).

At the Partnerships in Clinical Trials 2010 in Orlando FL, a panel discussion this morning with Senator Tom Daschle, Endo Pharmaceuticals  CEO David Holveck and ACRO  Executive director Doug Peddicord, the topic of Integrated Healthcare Solutions and the need to change of the R&D business model, with a focus on patients sas discussed. This was a very refreshing debate, and it is a theme which we will be hearing a lot more about. The challenge remains, however as Pharma still continues to focus on solutions “within the chemical space” so to say.

Tomorrow morning, WIRED’s Editor in Chief Chris Anderson will be speaking about The Long Tail – and the relevance to Pharma, and I will pick up and give a talk about thinking Small in Big Pharma – the potential future of Pharma R&D. Looking forward to seeing/hearing the reactions.

Some cool places I just learned about March 21, 2010

Check these interesting sites. Medgadget, the internet journal of emerging new medical technologies. Also, check out the West Wireless Health Institute, which is one of the world’s first medical research organizations focused on fostering an unprecedented convergence of science, medicine, engineering and technology. Its primary mission is to cut health care costs by identifying, creating, validating and commercializing the use of wireless technologies to transform medicine.