The Winner’s Curse
Most of us mix up the meaning of Biotech and Pharma since both do pretty much the same thing, invent new drugs. We tend to use Pharma to describe the FIDDCO, i.e. a fully integrated Drug Discovery and Development Company, whereas Biotech companies are more likely to be emergent and on some pathway towards full integration, driven by their own research. But as I remember it, Biotech was originally used to describe the new “big molecule” companies inspired by the early success of Amgen and Genentech from inventing protein drugs. However, when this early success was hard to reproduce, most biotechs stuck to the small classical organic molecules which still dominate clinical practice. This is now changing, as the majors move to acquire or develop a protein drug component for their pipelines. Some argue that we are likely to see protein drugs as 50% of Pharma pipelines, indeed with the acquisitions of CAT and Medimmune, AstraZeneca now has 27% of its current pipeline as proteins and that’s a big change for a company that grew out of manufacturing paints and dyestuffs.
Why is this happening now? No doubt the science has improved and people have gained much more experience in the technologies required to develop and manufacture proteins to the demanding standards required of a new drug, but there are also significant commercial drivers, proteins are expensive and the technology barrier to cloning by generics is higher.
If this continues there will be big changes coming …
The Borg
You know the Borg, probably the best of the Star Trek villains, and famous for their catch phrases “You must comply. You will be assimilated”. No ifs, no buts, no negotiation. You’d think that if the Borg really had assimilated the knowledge and culture of thousands of species, at least one could have added a few inter-personal skills. I think of the Borg whenever I hear someone say “You must protect your IP” to somebody trying to start a business. Usually this is offered as a piece of of unquestionable wisdom, no ifs, no buts, no negotiation.
You will have this mantra rammed into you if ever you raise your head above the parapet with the glimmer of a new business idea. For academics, the fount of science-based business ideas, this is doubly true and may well be written into contracts, along with other threatening statements about conflict of interest, which are intended to protect the University, but simply end up putting people off the whole idea. The logical consequence is that the academic should not openly publish and communicate their ideas. They should not freely collaborate with other scientists, especially those in business, at least not without all the paraphenalia of confidentiality agreements and contracts. It is easy to argue against this from a happy clappy, let’s all share for the good of science perspective, that this is not a good thing. That won’t get you far against the Borg though.
Recent Comments