There is an interesting article by David Horrobin in Nature Biotechnology
19, 1099-1020 (December 2001) with the title "Realism in drug
discovery---could Cassandra be right?"
It starts out in pessimistic mood: "Any regular reader cannot avoid being
impressed by the startling failure of the pharmaceutical research effort.
Most of the top companies are not generating in-house the new products
needed to sustain [their] rates of growth" [I've cut out quite a few words,
but I don't think I've distorted the message].
The conclusion is more optimistic: "Genomics will deliver in the end", but
there isn't actually much offered in the way of evidence to justify this
optimism. Wishful thinking rules, as always.
People in this news group interested in systems and complexity may quarrel
with the word "startling": what's startling about it? It just confirms what
we've been saying for a quarter of a century. But it's interesting to see
that the idea that drug discovery companies are not going about their
business in a way likely to lead to success may finally be reaching some of
the people in a position to influence matters.
athel
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Athel Cornish-Bowden
athel at ibsm.cnrs-mrs.frhttp://bip.cnrs-mrs.fr/bip10/homepage.htm
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