May 2, 2011, 9:15 PM
Helping New Drugs Out of Research’s ‘Valley of Death’
By DAVID BORNSTEIN
Fixes looks at solutions to social problems and why they work.


Consider two numbers: 800,000 and 21.

The first is the number of medical research papers that were published in 2008. The second is the number of new drugs that were approved by the Food and Drug Administration last year.

An ocean of research is producing cures and treatments by the drop.
That’s an ocean of research producing treatments by the drop. Indeed, in recent decades, one of the most sobering realities in the field of biomedical research has been the fact that, despite significant increases in funding — as well as extraordinary advances in things like genomics, computerized molecular modeling, and drug screening and synthesization — the number of new treatments for illnesses that make it to market each year has flatlined (pdf) at historically low levels.

And before anyone jumps to pin the blame on the F.D.A., it’s important to note that it’s not just new drug approvals that have declined — new drug applications have, too. Last year the F.D.A. received just 23. This situation has prompted researchers to question the productivity of the system that is supposed to turn biological knowledge into cures.

In Fixes, we have explored how systems can be made to work better when people come together to focus on common goals and deliberately align their efforts. We’ve looked at how “cradle-to-career” collaboration can produce gains in education. We’ve seen how a targeted and methodological approach can reduce chronic homelessness far more quickly than anticipated.

Today, I’m focusing on an organization called the Myelin Repair Foundation (M.R.F.) that is working to accelerate the development of a novel treatment for multiple sclerosis, a disease that affects 400,000 Americans. It is one of several foundations — others include the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Prostate Cancer Foundation — whose approach departs from the standard model employed by the National Institutes of Health and major medical foundations. These groups are intensely goal-directed and collaborative; they see the creation of new cures as a process that needs to be managed; and they bring a sense of urgency to the task...

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