Big Pharma and neuroscience research


Please read the following commentary in last week's Nature: Schwab &Buchli. Drug research: Plug the real brain drain. Nature 2012;483:267-7.


Some extracts:

"... drug companies have withdrawn from neuroscience, more so than from any other disease area. Last year, Novartis closed its preclinical neuroscience research facility in Basel, Switzerland. Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca had already made similar moves. Merck and Sanofi are also cutting research on brain diseases."
"Until recently, industry funded nearly half the budget for research and drug development for brain disorders. Its retreat has left an abyssal hole."

"The reason for companies' reluctance to pursue drugs for neurological disorders is fairly straightforward: their investments haven't paid off. In the past 10–15 years, dozens of clinical trials for stroke neuroprotection — involving thousands of patients — have failed."

"To get drug development going again, we must tackle the problems that have stalled it in the past by building a culture of interdisciplinary exchange to generate promising compounds and setting aside public funds to conduct small, well-designed clinical studies of those compounds. We realize that in such a tight funding situation, every field is asking for more. But given the extraordinary burdens neurological diseases cause, they must become more of a priority."

"This is very bad news for the field of MS; no R&D means a shrinking pipeline. We rely on Big Pharma to deliver innovative new treatments."

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