As noted “me toos” are necessary because don’t find found theperfect drug(s) due to individual responses (positive and negative) to different compounds in spite of same target or structural similarities. Nathan correct about people chasing same targets at different shops as “ideas” occur simultaneously because people read same papers and go to same conferences (and have much the same training). Usually by time you find out other companies working on same thing the investment is too big and likely requires greater costs as race begins. I think also tied to “blockbuster” mentality as limits possible areas of effort willing to get into.

Bob’s question of drug price with biotech discovery sources I would suggest not much impact since FPME notes prices largely determined by what market will tolerate (which may force down in future). It may help control early development costs a bit but biotechs are often even less efficient that big pharma in R&D and generally can’t do later steps well at all. The smaller companies are less afflicted with blockbusteritis so that help widen fields of investigations

Thanks

As for Angell and others, there has been a bit of a “me too” phenomenon there as well - particularly in many of the pop critiques that have followed on. There is also work that is new and does, indeed, deserve serious attention.

As an aside, I wonder how the “new” model of letting biotech companies take the risk of early stage drug discovery and then in-licensing the technology (or acquiring the company) will affect drug prices in the future, since royalty payments will be reflected as a cost of goods. The record high prices for deal-making will have to be factored in at some point.

You shouldn’t take issue with my characterization of “me too” drugs, you admit that this does happen. The point is those are the ones I am looking at, these can and should be highlighted as un-necessary. Read my words carefully, I did not say this is an arbitrary issue.

There IS communication between us already. We all know we are working on the same targets because we are all publishing about the same targets and we all go to scientific meetings and present work about the same targets. We learn from one another AND compete with one another. Remember, the drugs we are publishing about today will not be on the market for another 5-10 years. We don’t need a government agency to tell us that there are significant R&D overlaps between companies – we know that already. What to DO about those overlaps is a different question… It sounds like you want to force companies to eliminate or minimize those overlaps. My opinion is that the government should not be in the business of dictating the use of private R&D money.

I also take issue with your characterization of “me-too” drugs as “slightly altered molecules”. Sometimes that is true. If I’m struggling with a particular series of compounds, I might look at a competitor’s patent and make a few intelligent “tweaks” to their molecules and start testing out those compounds myself. However, more typically we are working on completely independent series of molecules. In the end, they may have similar properties simply because we all have similar objectives — but the molecules themselves were developed and optimized largely independently from one another.

This is good dialog about the issue of “Me too” - Nathan I can understand your frustration. And although I know you are not a fan of what I have said before. The example you share with us here on this thread highlights the point I was bringing up on the other thread. If there was some sort of way to communicate with one another through a government entity wouldn’t the patient population be better served if the information was shared and managed in a way that would allow for a some variations of a treatment for a given disease to be brought to market and incentive be given to help focus research into other areas.

I agree that two or three slightly altered molecules drive competition and the patients are helped because of the pricing issues. But lets be clear on this as well, in marketing we study the prices of products in the same category and we honestly bring our product prices to match what the market will bear and that doesn’t mean we are going to do much to bring the price down. Yes, there is some collusion amongst us, whether we admit it or not.

Today’s system really needs an overhaul. It adds way too much cost to the system and then we wind uo having to continue putting too much of an emphasis on marketing and sales which inevitably takes away from innovative research.