Lyrica Scientist: $700 Million, But No Party
9 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // March 10th, 2008 // 6:45 am
In a chemist’s version of a winning PowerBall ticket, Richard Silverman’s discovery eventually became a blockbuster drug that showered him and Northwestern University with more than $700 million in royalties, The Chicago Tribune writes. Still, there was disappointment along the way. Once Pfizer took control of the drug’s development, Silverman was pushed aside.
“I was an outsider,” Silverman, 61, tells the paper. “There was no talk with their scientists. No comments. They had a launch party for the drug, and I asked to come. Nope. No party for me. They take your stuff and tell you to go away.” This hurt, he continues, because “scientists aren’t in this for the money. We do it for the excitement of the research. You want to know what’s happening. To take that away is a shame.”
Silverman’s experience suggests finding a chemical that turns into a billion-dollar drug takes as much luck as winning the lottery. The rigor, logic and arcane scientific knowledge required are really just the price of a ticket. Even a spectacular discovery like Silverman’s would have likely gone unexploited without the help of a university’s technology transfer office, and what you see in the lab is often not what you get in drug development.
His unlikely journey to discovering what became Lyrica, a drug widely prescribed for neuropathic pain, started in the 1980s in Silverman’s Northwestern lab, where his research team studied chemicals made in the brain. Of particular interest was GABA, a neurotransmitter that inhibits certain brain functions. When GABA levels fall too low in some people, it can trigger epileptic seizures. His group studied enzymes that affect GABA levels, looking for ways to keep GABA elevated.
Most were not interested in 1989, but the Parke-Davis unit of Warner-Lambert wanted to know more. As Silverman learned later, Parke-Davis had a similar compound already in drug trials, his first bit of luck. Among 17 versions of the compound, called pregabalin, that Silverman sent to Parke-Davis, one showed effects in mice. This was another piece of luck because most chemicals that affect cells in lab experiments do not survive inside an animal.
It was more than 15 years from Silverman’s discovery of pregabalin until Lyrica reached the US market in 2005. During that time, Pfizer bought Warner-Lambert and took control of the drug. Late last year, Northwestern sold a portion of its Lyrica royalty rights to Royalty Pharma for $700 million. The university’s tech transfer rules call for sharing approximately one-fourth of royalties with faculty who make discoveries.
Despite his new-found millions, Silverman said his life is mostly unchanged. “I was happy with my life, with what I had before,” said Silverman. “So the money hasn’t changed much. We just go to better hotels now and you don’t have to think about what something costs.”
Silverman put much of his earnings toward a $95 million NU chemistry building that will bear his name, and Northwestern spends freely to recruit academic research stars to enhance its glittering nanotechnology research faculty. “It’ll be really nice to have a building with my name on it,” says Silverman, who continues to conduct research. “I’ll be long gone and the building will still be standing.”
Source: The Chicago Tribune
By the way, the scientist and the Pharmalot editor are not related.
Robyn
Ed, how about Milton Silverman? He was a hero who wrote such things as:
The Drugging of the Americas: How Multinational Drug Companies Say One Thing About Their Products to Physicians in the United States and Another Thing to Physicians in Latin America
Berkeley: University Of California Press; 1976
Ed Silverman
Hi Robyn,
No, not related. Other than immediate family, I have no Silverman relatives, even though it is a common name. Hard to believe, yes?
Cheers
ed
Nathan
Ed, I love this quote — it’s very accurate:
“Silverman’s experience suggests finding a chemical that turns into a billion-dollar drug takes as much luck as winning the lottery. The rigor, logic and arcane scientific knowledge required are really just the price of a ticket.”
I work in a building with about 100 other very smart chemists with years and years of experience. Do you know how many of them have designed a drug that has made it to market? Two. This is not a glamerous job… more than likely I’ll never make a compound that my company will sell for profit. Instead, I’ll simply waste millions upon millions of their dollars by the time I retire. It’s a rather sobering thought….
University Update - Northwestern University - Lyrica Scientist: $700 Million, But No Party
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Dave
He should not feel to bad. There are people who work in pharma campanies that don’t get a party when a drug that they invented goes to market. That goes to the marketing teams and the people who submit the paperwork to the FDA.
Bob Freeman
Not to mention that the scientists who discovered Lipitor and Celebrex accepted severance packages after Pfizer acquired Warner Lambert and Searle (Pharmacia), respectively. In fairness, I understand they did not want to relocate to the East Coast and this represented an involunatary separation (downsizing).
CMC guy
Its too bad Dr. Silverman was excluded during the development as seems he may have wished to have more interactions and could reflect not wishing to bring attention to a NIMH (not in my house) discovery nature of the project and perhaps loss of PD Champions who knew more of his contributions. His attitude (and sharing the wealth) is not always what have seen with other academics who are happy for the money and reputation associated so can do their own research but care or understand little about the effort to develop, approve then manufacture and sale a new drug.
I think Dave is only partly correct in that the Sales and Marketing folks plus Executives get a fancy launch parties whereas Reg (who submits), R&D (Discovery and Development) and Manufacturing (makes) are lucky to get a mug, pen or other swag with the product name.
S
He might not have gone to the party, but at least he got a payout for it. Had he been working in house for the pharma company he’d've not got to go to the party (as Dave says) and would have been paid a princely $1 in exchange for signing over his patent rights. Most scientists aren’t in it for the money, but the lack of recognition companies give their scientists is staggering.
Dave
They get recognition….It took a certain company 20+ years to recognize the scientist who discovered Loratadine. I guess they (the company) was too busy counting their money. It takes awhile to count a few billion.