We all know that information is valuable, and that more information is generally better than less.
But in the realm of pharmaceutical research (as in others, to be sure), there’s a troubling paradox: while successes are widely publicized, and while the results of clinical trials are usually published, the research from projects that fail before that stage is usually kept hidden. “A result,” writes Natasha Singer in The Times, “is that companies waste many millions going down experimental paths that their competitors have already found to be dead ends.”
You should read Singer’s article in full, but here are a few highlights:
Now big-picture thinkers, within the industry and outside it, are re-examining every stage of drug development — from molecule to market — in an effort to foster faster innovation. It’s a holistic approach, called “systems thinking,” that originated in methods that engineers used to streamline projects in the aeronautics and automotive industries.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for one, started a pharmaceutical innovation program this year to help drug companies adapt some successful approaches now used in aeronautics, like lean management and information-sharing among rivals.
And:
The M.I.T. project, called New Drug Development Paradigms, has gathered a powerful consortium of interested parties — including major drug makers and federal health authorities. One short-term goal is to identify, and rectify, the root causes of bottlenecks in the existing system. Longer term, the ambition is to create new prediction models, new ways to share information about the biology of diseases, and a new inclusiveness involving earlier participation of regulators, health insurers, health care providers, and patients.
And:
In the absence of a public database on failed drug compounds, a small group from the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. and the Harvard Business School has created Pharmer’s Market (not this one), an online prediction market that uses crowd-sourcing to forecast the likelihood of a drug’s success. Introduced last month, the market has invited biomedical researchers and other drug industry experts to place anonymous bets, using virtual money, on the likelihood that certain breast cancer drugs, currently in clinical trials, will succeed or fail.
After the clinical trials conclude, researchers can assess whether this kind of collective intelligence may be a useful predictive tool for drug companies, said Ragu Bharadwaj, who helped devise the project as an M.I.T. graduate student.
There is an obvious conflict between open-sourcing and a competitive marketplace, but it is exciting to see smart people pushing hard to change the shape of that marketplace for the public good.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Of course all clinical reseach trials and other results and other understandings gained through scientific investigation — even if the treatment demonstates dangerous side effects and/or lack of efficacy should be made available to all.
This would benefit all: patients, pharaceutical companies…
Well, the entire society and the world.
But, I have read about this a number of times over many years. Why does the wheel have to be invented so many times — and, people pay little or no attention to it?
What is the incentive to report a “failed combination”?
Could a “failed combination” report from a competitor be trusted?
What does it mean that a combination failed? Aren’t there drugs on the market today which “failed” for one purpose, but we effective for another purpose?
If the US government sponsored pharm research, would the results be public knowledge?
Does it sometimes happen that people think they have conducted an experiment correctly, and for whatever reason, people later discover the results to have been incorrect?
I think so, right? So in addition to the issues of companies (justly!) not wanting to share this sort of info with their competitors, there are still benefits of repeating research.
Another benefit may be that upon repeating some type of research, researchers may think of a question, or notice something different that leads to some sort of discovery that was not initially sought after, but which could still benefit society and possibly in ways greater than the actual experiment was supposed to. And perhaps the original company or original scientists who had already studied the matter did not notice something important?
I’m all in for sharing the information regarding the failed experiments into a database after of course dealing with the various questions like credibility,possibility of future research,etc.Actually this initiative should be taken by the pharma companies for their own growth and profitability.It would be similar to the sharing of cell phone towers by cell phone operators or the ATM’s by banks,just a bit more complex.
I’ve an Idea:
Why can’t drug companies come together and create a unique database as explained below.
First of all, we will assume A, B, and C are THREE different DRUG companies. Ex will represent a experiment FAILED and Ex1 will represent an experiment which has already been conducted by A but FAILED, and is kept secret by A and, Ex1B will represent the duplicate experiment Ex1 which is just going to started by B as well. Lastly, we’ll call the proposed central database as Q.
The problem with creating a Q is that A, B and C won’t cooperate because each member(A,B and C) think the profit made out of its preexisting portfolio (medicine) is going to offset any loss occurred by a failed Ex. A solution would be to create a Q, where each member(A, B and C) will deposit some money as well as input any experiments which is going to be conducted as well as input Ex, and in this case, A inputed the result of Ex1 into the Q. Then, B is just going to start experimenting that same experiment (which is denoted as Ex1B) and has just registered that experiment to Q. But, Q notifies A (NOT B) that a failed experiment (previously conducted by them) is also going to start being conducted by an anonymous Drug company. it also says (to A) that, it (A) can make some money by warning or notifying that anonymous company the results of that failed Ex1. So, A creates a contract with Q and, Q adds some money inside A’s deposit from B’s deposit money. Then, Q notifies B about the impending failed experiment it has just started conducting, and it also says it(Q) has taken some of its(B’s) deposit money for giving this warning.
One way for A, B and C to abuse Q is to input a lot of false information which haven’t yet been attempted by the drug companies. A way to curb this behavior among A, B and C is to put a clause in the contract between Q and A, B,C that, each company(A,B and C) can at maximum, derive 25% of its profits from Q and the rest of the profit has to come from its medicine portfolio.
-Catfish, http://blendonomics.wordpress.com
I really don’t understand the controversy here. There is a database called clinicaltrials.gov where the results of every clinical trial are made completely public.
Its is not a new information especially for those in the scientific community. As a former research chemist, I want to say that no one starts a project intending it to fail, hence the word research and most of the time the end usage is not know. Most synthesis do work and those result are published an put in searchable databases but not because a successful synthesis does not make a successful product. The steps from getting a compound from the lab to a bottle takes many steps, many people and several years. Knowing the amount of work and length of time it takes to produce pharmaceutical, I would not start such business.
Jonathan (5):
The patent system does more: It forces the inventor to publish his invention long before the patent expires: As soon as it is granted, it has to be published.
Only in exchange for the publication the inventor gets the protection patent law offers. In other legislations the publication happens already with filing the patent.