Amazon For Lab Rats: Buying Drug Discovery Online
2 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // September 16th, 2008 // 4:31 pm
Where does a researcher turn when toxicology services are in short supply? In a new twist on the outsourcing craze, a new service hopes to fill that void with Assay Depot, an online marketplace that allows bench scientists to buy varying drug discovery services, according to Out-SourcingPharma.
An example: a researcher looking for rodent toxicology services can log onto the site and find the relevant section listing various service providers, with prices and turnaround times. The user can also ask for quotes from Assay Depot’s registered providers, and either send samples directly to the provider, or make use of Assay Depot as an intermediary if anonymity is required, OutSourcing writes.
The idea is to appeal to small drugmakers and biotechs, universities and virtual drug discovery firms, which have limited resources and so have to outsource research tasks. There is no charge, by the way, for either the user or the service provider to access and use Assay Depot, which gets a commission on each transaction, much like Amazon collects fees when peddling books and DVDs.
With industry spending on drug discovery research to hit $20 billion annually by 2011, Kevin Lustig, Assay’s ceo, tells OutSourcing Pharma, “if we become the ‘Amazon’ of the pharmaceutical services industry, then the sky is the limit.”
Salmon
This will be not only useful for drug discovery but for lawyers and plaintiffs also.
A number of serious toxicities with drugs can be detected or supported by these types of studies and industry documents will often indicate that certain studies that should be standard were not done. I believe that by having these studies done themselves for a few thousand dollars lawyers will be able to convert lawsuits into multibillion dollar settlements.
It only takes someone knowledgable about what is being left out to guide lawyers to do the appropriate studies.
Salmon
Cobalt
My understanding is that all of these services are preclinical, thus of somewhat limited utility in detecting adverse effects in humans (i.e. the in vitro or animal in vivo results may be somewhat predictive and give impetus for carrying out a human trial, but, especially depending on the assay, certainly conclusive as to the potential risks of the drug)