Well, the federal government is involved to Carey and Girija’s point….taxpayer dollars ($28 billion each year just at NIH but additional dollars from Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration contribute as well)…and their “mission” is to improve human health by supporting basic research. Some would argue that government should and can do more…and while I would rather see more money allocated to research than less, I happen to believe we could actually improve how the government dollars are spent. I believe that one of the reason’s MJFF has had such an impact on PD research (despite the fact that it has significantly less money than government or industry) is because we can use our money differently and do. Innovation of process (being more strategic and urgent and results oriented) is part of our success.

Just to reiterate, in Sunday's New York Times, Gina Kolata wrote a very instructive piece about the government grant system and zero’s in on one of its great shortcomings…it discourages risk. The article is about cancer but we see the same issues / behaviors across many diseases. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/he...ncer.html?_r=1

Collaboration is an important concept but it may make the solution sound too simple…pharma lives for the innovative ideas that come out of academia---they regularly admit that if we will see innovation, it will come from the government-fed, discovery engine…as I tried to explain, one of the more difficult challenges is the lack of natural handoffs between experts let alone through the hands of the many and varied experts required to move an idea from A to Z in my alphabet analogy.

While we gain something by having all the cell biologists in the room at the same time, the real value is having experts from all the relevant stages of science needed to develop a therapy connected to each other…we have found that our convening power is unique and exceptionally valuable…much of our strength (both in understanding the full scale and context of our work and in executing our strategies) comes from getting these disparate groups to work together. More and more, academics and industry players are relying on MJFF to develop innovative strategy to bridge these key gaps (with targeted dollars and focused problem-solving)…a completely different kind of innovation but one that continues to get much traction.

Debi