Producing progress? Issues to consider Authors Mara Dierssen Centre for Genomic Regulation, University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Catalonia Abstract There is a growing gap in productivity in the biopharmaceutical industry. The money spent on developing new drugs has increased substantially, but the hopedfor dramatic increase in new therapies based on recent revolutions in molecular biology and genetics has yet to materialize. Long approval times, high-failures rates, and high competion account in part for this situation. Some argue that entrepreneurs are not promoting fundamental, new discoveries and instead are simply profiting from the knowledge generated by academia. In fact, publicly funded research is driving progress in a completely new fi eld and the development of a completely new landscape of medicine. The knowledge thereby acquired has dramatically changed the approach to targeting disease. In response, a new model is needed, one that addresses how investment in innovation is driven, but also how innovation is done.Keywords: innovation; pharmaceutical industry; genomic medicine; epigenetics; healthcare system Downloads PDF Issue Vol. 10 No. 1 (2014) Section Distinguished lectures License This work is subject, unless the contrary is indicated in the text, the photographs or in other illustrations, to an Attribution —Non-Commercial— No Derivative Works 3.0 Creative Commons License, the full text of which can be consulted at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. You are free to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work provided that the author is credited and reuse of the material is restricted to non-commercial purposes only and that no derivative works are created from the original material.
