BIO news: Happy dogs, hopeful Fox

Actor and Parkinson's disease sufferer Michael J Fox has called on industry, venture capital and government to increase spending on early clinical trials of new drugs and treatments.

Addressing the BIO 2007 convention in Boston, Fox characterised the drug development process as a game of Texas Hold'em: "you are dealt a few cards and you have to make a bet based on how promising your hand looks. With each knew card you are dealt you get a little more information and of course you have to put more money on the table - big money."

He urged all stakeholders to concentrate more on the early stages of development, particularly in target validation and early clinical trials. Huge amounts of public money are invested in early basic research and even more at the end of the pipeline, he said. It's in the middle stages that things fall down.

"The publish or perish system encourages exploring elegant questions whose answers are intellectual interesting but often low risk," he said.

"It favours basic research over clinical, a far cry from the out of the box flyers that are a hallmark of truly innovative results: translating discovery into truly new treatments.

"At the other end of the research pipeline, the commercialisation end, there is an even larger pool of capital controlled by biotech companies and pharma and their backers.

"We understand that companies measure success through shareholder profit. I get it, but we hear from small companies that are involved in the earliest, pre-stage clinical work that investors have little appetite for the high-risk studies that determine whether an idea has value or not."

Fox used the example of his own disease to make the point that a lot of industry capital is used on "repurposing" old ideas rather than developing new ones.

"Levodopa is the gold standard treatment for Parkinson's disease ... [but] it is a little frustrating that the best drug we've got has been around for 40 years.

"Credit where credit is due - there are a lot of innovations happening. One that comes to mind is anti-depressants for dogs. Which makes it a little bit easier for me - my symptoms may not be getting better but my dog feels better about it."

He argued that fulfilling the unmet needs of patients across all diseases isn't about more money - it's about spending money more effectively.

"The tough truth is that the research pipeline and the therapeutic development system breaks down in the exact spot where we need it to work the hardest - the place where it should be driving the higher risk, higher reward work of converting basic discoveries into new therapies," he said.

"We are failing to incent the high risk initiatives that could really make a significant difference more quickly.

"Translation requires a new kind of stakeholder. (Patient groups) hope to bridge the gap between value and effectiveness. For patients like me the goal is for everyone to win."