A
recent piece in SCIENCE described the
enthusiasm of NIH Director Francis Collins for the Accelerating Medicines
Partnership (AMP). The goal is to cut down on the more than 95% failure rate for
drug candidates by linking between NIH funded research and industry. At first glance one is cheered to learn that the NIH
will devote resources to a partnership with drug companies to seek new
treatments for Alzheimer’s and other chronic diseases. But where will the money
come from? There is essentially no new
money in the NIH budget, so these efforts will divert funds from traditional
NIH individual investigator grants (R01s) to these larger projects. There are
two problems with this. The first is that it is unclear whether such top-down,
large-scale research efforts really pay off in terms of fundamental advances.
The second is that small laboratories, particularly young investigators just
getting started, will not be able to compete effectively for these large
projects. The multi-year drought in R01 funding that began with the onset of
the great recession is already beginning to winnow talented young people from
careers in biomedical research. Is it wise to make their lives more difficult
by further constraining R01 funding? My
guess is that greater advances in understanding chronic diseases would result
from keeping a few more bright young investigators in the game, rather than
putting money into mega-projects.
Converting advances in basic research into therapies is really the
responsibility of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, not the NIH. If
industry isn’t doing its job maybe it needs some carrots (or sticks) to push it
in that direction.
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