Room for improvement
Despite its impressive track record, this system's weaknesses have become more glaring as cancer research has advanced into the genomic era. "It is a somewhat inefficient process," says Dana-Farber's Chief Scientific Officer Barrett Rollins, MD, PhD. "Traditionally, academic scientists have had to act as their own agents in finding pharmaceutical companies to partner with. Those who are less skilled in attracting commercial interest in their discoveries are at a disadvantage, however scientifically exciting those discoveries may be."
Another shortcoming has been financial. Signing a licensing agreement early in the drug development process – before a molecule has undergone exhaustive studies to prove its value as a drug target – provides a relatively small return to the molecule's discoverer and home institution. From a pharmaceutical firm's perspective, it makes little sense to pay a lot for a molecule that may prove inaccessible to drugs and whose potential benefits are unknown. For the original investigator, this means less money for further research.
"The longer a research center can 'hold onto' a molecule and demonstrate its potential as a drug target, the more control it will have over the molecule's future use."
"The longer a research center can 'hold onto' a molecule and demonstrate its potential as a drug target, the more control it will have over the molecule's future use," Rollins says, "and the greater the financial reward will be for the work."
Room for improvement can also be found at the other end of the drug-development process, when potential medications are tested in patients. At present, about half the clinical trials at Dana-Farber are multicenter studies involving contracts between pharmaceutical firms and dozens of hospitals across the country. The other half – the more groundbreaking ones – are "home-grown" studies involving discoveries in Dana-Farber labs and collaborations among the Institute's basic and clinical investigators and others. Often, these studies find new uses for already-existing drugs or combinations of such drugs.
At most cancer centers, such a 50-50 split would be acceptable, even desirable, but not at one that aims to "move the field" as Dana-Farber does. "We want to be a thought leader in the development of clinical trials," says Chief Clinical Research Officer Philip Kantoff, MD. "That means designing the right experiments, devising the right way to conduct them, and measuring the results. Our challenge is to create a route for converting laboratory advances into therapeutic advances."
- Next: Coming full circle
- From discovery to delivery: 1 | 2 | 3
