Lord James Black, the Nobel Prize-winning developer of beta blockers, recently addressed business and biotech leaders in London and pointed to a troubling trend. As he has approached pharmaceutical companies with ideas for new drugs and sought funding to work on them, he said he found the companies increasingly reluctant to take a chance on projects that previously they would have supported.

The reasons for the reluctance are complicated:

• First, major drug makers long depended on profits from top-selling products to fund research and development on new medication. The cost of the R&D could run into the billions industry wide, with company executives aware that most of the projects would not bear fruit while the few “blockbuster” products would cover the costs. Now many of their best products have patents that are about to expire and few have promising drugs to bring to market in place of them.
• A second cause of the drying up of research funds, according to industry experts, is that the government review process has become longer, slower and more rigorous.
• Finally, the investment community, particularly in the current financial environment, is less supportive of companies taking big risks in hopes of hitting the home run with a major medical breakthrough.

This is particularly concerning as regards research into diseases for which a hoped-for cure is a long way off, such as Alzheimer’s, because the money will flow in increasing amounts to projects that promise a faster and more certain return.

One solution being considered in England is for investors and companies to form biotech joint ventures that are smaller, less costly and can focus entirely on one project. While money for such joint ventures has been harder to come by recently, the British government, working with major corporations, is considering a $3 billion fund to jump-start the effort.

Related posts:

1. Foundation Gives $25 Million for Research The University of California-San Francisco will receive $25 million from...