[Ip-health] WSJ Story on $1 Million Prize to advance cancer research

[Manon Ress]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
Will Sharing Ideas Advance Cancer Research?
Hedge-Fund Managers Offer $1 Million Prize to Combat Scientists'
Culture of Secrecy
By AMY DOCKSER MARCUS
September 18, 2007

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119007362996330515.html?
mod=pj_main_hs_coll

After Hope Goldstein was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer in
2001, her family wanted to help. Her husband and two sons started
researching the disease and quickly realized that even with surgery
and chemotherapy, the prognosis wasn't good.

So they went in search of the one thing they believed still might
help Mrs. Goldstein: new ideas.

They started calling cancer researchers, doctors at leading academic
centers, specialists in ovarian cancer. In their conversations, they
ran into an unexpected obstacle. Many people did have new ideas. But
frequently, they weren't willing to share them.

Friends who worked in medical research tried to explain: Companies
often will not pursue an idea for commercialization unless it is
patented, requiring secrecy in the early stages. In addition, the
grant process is competitive, and no one wants to get scooped.
Perhaps most notably, professional advancement depends on publishing
ideas in scientific journals.

In 2004, Mrs. Goldstein died. But her son Robert Goldstein, 41,
continued to think about the issue. It seemed to him that what was
holding back cancer research wasn't only a lack of money but a
culture that discouraged the sharing of promising leads.

"If you have a great idea but someone else publishes it first, you
get no credit, professionally or financially," says Gary Curhan of
Harvard Medical School, one of the researchers who spoke with Robert
Goldstein about the issue of sharing. "Ideas," says Dr. Curhan, "are
our currency."

A managing partner at the hedge fund Gotham Capital in New York, Mr.
Goldstein recognized similarities with his own profession. Money
managers also were reluctant to share investment ideas. A few years
earlier, Mr. Goldstein's business partner and friend, Joel
Greenblatt, the 49-year-old founder of Gotham Capital, had created an
online, selective group called the Value Investors Club, to spur idea
sharing. Members shared investing strategies and commented on each
other's research. A cash prize was awarded for the best idea of the
week.

The two men thought that perhaps a similar model would work in cancer
research. So this year they agreed to put up $1 million of their own
money every year to fund the Gotham Prize for Cancer Research.
Modeled on the Value Investors Club, the annual prize will go to the
person who posts the best new cancer-research idea, judged by a board
of respected scientists, at the prize's Web site by the end of December.

The winner of the Gotham Prize doesn't have to present a shred of
evidence that the premise will work. To attract ideas from people
outside the field of cancer research, there is no requirement that
the winner be capable of seeing the idea through. And the prize money
is earmarked for personal use, to be spent on anything the winner
wants, even a fancy car or a bigger house.

This concept has been met with some skepticism, even by the
scientific advisory board that will judge the ideas. Board member
Meir Stampfer of Harvard Medical School said that when he was invited
to join he asked, "Is this really a good use of their money? Maybe
there is something better they can fund."
FUNDING A CURE

But the unusual nature of the prize illustrates the lengths to which
patients and patient advocates are increasingly willing to go to
boost research into their disease, especially rare illnesses for
which there is little funding. Patients have hired their own experts
to conduct research in particular diseases, and even helped to fund
their own clinical trials. Efforts are also focused on overcoming the
reluctance to share ideas.

Avichai Kremer, a 32-year-old who has ALS, the neurodegenerative
illness also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is co-founder of the
Prize4Life, which is awarding a $1 million prize for ALS biomarker
discovery. The National Institutes of Health announced this year a
program called the New Innovator Award offering grants of up to $1.5
million over five years for innovative research projects that don't
have extensive preliminary data.

In addition, the National Cancer Institute is helping companies find
a way to collaborate in drug testing without worrying about
intellectual-property issues. The medical journal the Oncologist is
encouraging the publication of failed medical trials in order to
bring the ideas behind these trials -- which otherwise would never
see the light of day -- to a broader audience. And Mr. Goldstein's
father, Alfred, with help from the family's other son, Mark, also
developed a venture that aims to improve idea-sharing: Through
"Project Hope," named for his late wife, Alfred Goldstein guarantees
certain funding for specific projects and requires the researchers
share results with each other on a regular basis.

The Gotham Prize is a particularly ambitious project that is
attracting attention. The foundation of the Ira Sohn Investment
Research Conference, which runs the conference as a benefit to raise
money for cancer, will fund an additional $250,000 prize for the best
pediatric-cancer idea submitted to the Gotham site. Ephraim Gildor,
founder of Axiom Investment Advisors, is also providing financial
support for the prize.

In setting up the prize, Mr. Greenblatt and Mr. Goldstein knew that
they couldn't evaluate the new ideas themselves, so they set up a
board of pre-eminent scientists and researchers. They include people
to whom they have a personal connection, like Dr. Curhan, who is also
Mr. Greenblatt's brother-in-law. Others such as Michael Kastan,
director of the cancer center at St. Jude Children's Research
Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., said they had received letters "out of
the blue" inviting them to participate.

Dr. Curhan, the head of the advisory board, says all ideas submitted
are vetted by at least two members of the board before being posted.
As a result, although there are over 1,030 registered users, only 54
ideas have been posted. About 75% of the submitted ideas have been
rejected so far, Dr. Curhan says. The tension is always how to
eliminate ideas "not because they are new or different, but because
there is no scientific basis for them," says Mr. Greenblatt. "It
can't become a free-for-all. We want quality ideas or the site won't
work."

To submit an idea, applicants need supply only a 500-to-1,000-word
explanation of their concept and the reasoning behind it. They don't
have to supply any data or evidence that the concept has been tested.

Some of the ideas accepted so far are very unusual. Someone who
described himself as a businessman and former guitar player in a rock
band proposed searching for the resonant frequency of cancer cells
and then applying subsonic sound waves to cancer patients in order to
trigger the body's immune response. Dr. Curhan says that idea sparked
debate on the board. But it was posted in the end because some
members argued that it couldn't totally be ruled out and was novel
and outside-the-box.

There was also a proposal for a sort of pap smear for early detection
of breast cancer by a scientist who runs a major university lab but
says it would be very difficult to get funding for such an early-
stage project. Another comes from an AIDS researcher, who discovered
an idea about brain cancer and thought as an outsider in cancer
research he was unlikely to get funding from traditional sources. A
survivor of testicular cancer posted an idea about an algorithm he
created that he believes could lead to better early detection of
recurrence.

Dr. Kastan of St. Jude says that even after reading all the ideas, "I
am still waiting to see if it works." He says that most important
scientific discoveries are made by "someone who was doing an
experiment that had an unusual result that took them in a different
direction. It is data that shows us the way, not a wild idea that
comes out of nowhere." But he says he agreed to get involved because
he recognized there weren't many places for scientists to share an
early idea.

Bert Vogelstein of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,
another advisory-board member, says he isn't sure he totally embraces
the "anyone can have a great idea" approach that seemed to drive the
initial concept. But he says that getting grants from government
agencies like the NIH sometimes "forces people to do somewhat mundane
experiments that follow up on other experiments rather than thinking
creatively. In cancer in particular, we need more things that have
never been done before because I think that's the only way we're
going to beat the disease."

Similar thinking was behind the efforts at the Oncologist, a journal
for cancer specialists, to publish online the results of so-called
negative trials -- those that don't end up supporting the initial
hypothesis. These trials don't result in the drug getting approved
and aren't typically published. "A font of information" is being lost
that could be helpful if looked at a new way, says Martin J. Murphy
Jr., founding executive editor of the Oncologist.

At the NCI, scientists found that investigators at different
companies wanted to share ideas and test different drugs in new
combinations. But often they "couldn't do so because their own legal
departments wouldn't let them because of intellectual property
issues," says James Zwiebel of the NCI's Cancer Therapy Evaluation
program. The NCI stepped in and crafted an agreement that each
company signs that lets the NCI test a drug in combination with other
companies' agents; the companies share in any information and other
ideas that arise from the experiments.

Not everyone supports the premise that there's some great idea out
there today waiting to be heard. "I don't sense a lot of holding back
of exciting information," says Robert Ozols, senior vice president of
medical science at Fox Chase Cancer Center and one of the oncologists
the Goldsteins felt was willing to share ideas. "If we knew something
worked, we'd be doing it."

But the prize applicants believe otherwise. Mark Kantrowitz, the
publisher of FinAid.org, a Web site about student financial aid, and
director of advanced projects for FastWeb.com, came across a posting
about the prize while scouring the Web. In May 2003, at age 36, he
was diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer. After completing
treatment, he was put on a surveillance schedule of regular CT scans
to pick up any possible recurrence. "The schedule seemed totally
arbitrary," says Mr. Kantrowitz, who has a background in mathematics.
He wrote an algorithm for a computer program that creates a
surveillance schedule based on the greatest likelihood of catching a
relapse as early as possible.

"I know it needs a clinical trial, but I come from outside the field
and wouldn't know how to start it," he says. Even if he doesn't win
the $1 million, he says he hopes an oncologist sees the idea online
and likes it enough to test it. All of the ideas posted for the prize
can be seen at www.gothamprize.org, by users who register as guests.

David Rimm, a tenured professor of pathology at Yale University
School of Medicine, runs a large, grant-funded research lab, where he
says he can get money for his mainstream research. But things that
are very early or "more out on the limb, are very difficult to get
funded," he says. So he posted an idea to develop a kind of pap smear
for early breast-cancer detection, using spectral spatial imaging
technology on breast-tissue samples, to detect cellular changes
beyond what the pathologist's eye can see.

Dr. Rimm says a colleague told him about the prize, but that he was
surprised when he learned that the $1 million was for personal use.
At the site, the founders had explained that one of the goals of the
prize is to fill in current research gaps. "If they're just giving us
money to buy a boat, it won't lead to filling the gaps," he says.

Mr. Goldstein and Mr. Greenblatt recognize that there is no guarantee
that the winner will spend the money on shepherding the concept into
a clinic. What they hope is that the prize site can serve as a kind
of marketplace of ideas, where additional investors might see
something interesting and decide to invest in some of the other
projects as well. The prize's true value, Mr. Greenblatt said, will
come from jump-starting that process. In the end, says Dr. Curhan,
"if you get even three or four really good ideas the first year, that
would be a huge success."

Write to Amy Dockser Marcus at amy.marcus@wsj.com

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