[Ip-health] Ecsatsy and Agony: The Current State of the Pharmaceutical Industry

[Mike Palmedo]

http://turnleft.theworldoutthere.com/?page=608/felder0

"Ecstasy and Agony: The Current State of the Pharmaceutical Industry" -
Dr. Venkatraman Mohan, Ph.D. addresses The Triple Helix

Ethan M. Felder
Turn Left (Student paper from Cornell)
May 3, 2006

It's not everyday that engineering, biology, and government majors
gather to hear a lecturer. But such was the case with Dr. Venkantraman
Mohan's discussion on the current state of the pharmaceutical industry.
Mohan is an advisor to the Cornell chapter of the international,
student-run journal, The Triple Helix, which specializes in issues of
science, society, and law. Mohan discussed the inefficiencies with the
drug production process in big pharmaceutical companies such as Merck.
The point that was stressed throughout the lecture was the notion that
such pharmaceutical companies exist solely to make a profit, an activity
that does not always align with the public interest.

Mohan was introduced by Triple Helix president Lena Kuznetsova as an
expert on the pharmaceutical industry. Mohan is an associate director of
the Sceata Technology Group, which "blends venture capitalism with
consulting." Mohan went on to explain that when individuals have an idea
but lack the money or resources to pursue that idea, it becomes
necessary to work under the tutelage of a venture capitalist firm such
as Mohan's. Mohan began his presentation by discussing the "ecstasy" and
"agony" in the pharmaceutical business. On the one hand, "people are
cured from harmful diseases and science becomes more and more advanced."
On the other hand, Mohan pointed to a system that is readily inefficient
and at times downright corrupt. Mohan explained how it can take 15 years
and over a billion dollars to put a drug on the shelf after it goes
through many phases of development, testing, and approval.

There are many reasons why the system is so inefficient. First,
pharmaceutical companies are so large that scientists working on the
same drug work in different labs, located in different states, which
causes normal bureaucratic slow-downs. Secondly, Mohan pointed to the
"silo effect," where scientists work at the same desk on the same
project day after day with little progress on a day-to-day basis. Mohan
offered generalized solutions to help fight inefficiency. He spoke about
"rewarding successful teams rather than individuals" and the need to
"align corporate and individual interests." Furthermore, Mohan suggested
that undergraduate universities require business classes for their
engineering and biology majors. He believes it is necessary for
scientists and engineers to comprehend market forces and other business
principles that affect the company for which they work.

Later on, Mohan cited the many insider trading scandals that have rocked
big business, from Samuel Waksal and Imclone to Kenneth Lay and Enron.
Mohan discussed how these scandals are endemic in an industry that is
"more about economics than science." Like any other business,
pharmaceutical companies are exclusively interested in generating a
hefty profit. As a result, Mohan conceded, scientists are sometimes
pushed to manipulate data and work faster in order to compete with other
companies working on similar drugs. This culture of competition led to
the whole Vioxx debacle where Merck distributed a drug that caused heart
attacks as a side-effect. Mohan argued that, contrary to media reports,
"we still do not know for sure whether Merck knew beforehand that its
drug caused such harmful side-effects."

The lecture coincided with the release of the spring '06 issue of The
Triple Helix. According to president Lena Kuznetsova, The Triple Helix
is "one of the fastest growing student-run undergraduate journals with
over 20 chapter universities and over 500 students involved on four
continents." When asked how the presentation went, marketing director,
Daniel Eskinazi '09 remarked that "it went better than expected with a
strong turnout." Overall, there was a lot to learn at Mohan's
eye-opening lecture. The integration of subjects like science, business,
politics, and law provided for some thought-provoking discussion.