Seeing Positive Signs 8 years later…
British journalist Jacky Law’s 2006 book, Big Pharma: How the World’s Biggest Drug Companies Control Illness was a chart-topper that exposed how pharmaceutical companies (and their business/profit departments…) that decide which health care issues are researched and which medicines are produced in light of the failure of regulatory standards and laws that were supposed to mitigate the pharmaceutical companies will to peruse profit in deference to improvements in public health. The spotlight shone on this issue by Law almost a decade ago has lasted and has compelled many pharmaceutical corporations to engage in a more public discourse about drug research and, no doubt, helped build the foundations for last month’s February 4th announcement by the National Institutes of Health:
Feb 4 (Reuters) – Ten big rival drug companies have formed a pact to cooperate on a government-backed effort to accelerate the discovery of new drugs, the Wall Street Journal reported. The companies and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will share scientists, tissue and blood samples, and data, to identify targets for new drugs for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, the Journal said. The collaboration, called the Accelerating Medicines Partnership, will cost about $230 million and involves drug makers such as Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Takeda Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi. The agreement prohibits participants from using any discovery for their own drug development until the project makes data public on that discovery. (source: www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/04/nih-drugspact-idUSL3N0L915B20140204)
