The Health Blog just reported on a conversation with J&J's head of drug R&D, Paul Stoffels, on what the drug industry needs to do to survive in a difficult economic and regulatory environment. Here is what he said as reported by HB.
Drugmakers’ struggle for survival boils down to finding new medicines to replace the old. The key, Stoffels told the Health Blog, is “open innovation,” or looking outside of companies for innovation and then collaborating with biotechs or academics on promising compounds.
“All simple diseases have been solved,” Stoffels said. “The next-generation drugs, therapies, are much more complex… You need much more information and science than what you can get out of your own internal labs.”
Stoffels said he learned the value of external partners “the hard way and also the good way.” When his first HIV drugs — developed in-house — were tested in patients, they didn’t work. He realized he didn’t know enough about the clinical complexity of HIV.
He sought the help of hospitals and other institutions working with patients. A 10-year collaboration led to two J&J HIV medicines — Prezista and Intelence — now on the market.
Others in the industry also have acknowledged that external partnerships will be important for developing innovative drugs moving forward. Critics say the drug industry has no choice but to look to biotechs or academic for help, given companies’ weak internal pipelines and stagnant R&D spending.
The future of the drug industry, Stoffels told the Health Blog, is “building networks where together with a number of different groups you come up with solutions to solve different medical needs.”
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