From owner-btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Thu Jan 10 00:30:13 2002 Return-Path: Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 41F0517AB6 for ; Thu, 10 Jan 2002 00:30:12 +0000 (GMT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id D5AF517AEA for ; Thu, 10 Jan 2002 00:30:07 +0000 (GMT) Received: from niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (niobium [193.62.192.41]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3B7C517AB6 for ; Thu, 10 Jan 2002 00:30:06 +0000 (GMT) Received: (from news@localhost) by niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (8.9.3+Sun/8.8.8) id AAA10015 for btk-mca-list@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk; Thu, 10 Jan 2002 00:28:41 GMT X-Authentication-Warning: niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk: news set sender to using -f From: Elzinator X-Newsgroups: bionet.metabolic-reg Subject: Re: Realism in drug discovery Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2002 19:34:04 -0500 Organization: Muffin Research Labs Reply-To: none@none.com Message-ID: <95op3u0f5e2v4uvjqrqdkujq4903kvkp12@4ax.com> References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 26 To: btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Sender: owner-btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Precedence: bulk On 9 Jan 2002 14:12:55 -0000, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote: >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. Perhaps. However, the industry's investment in the SNP Consortium may actually produce results. >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. Elzi .