In the News

A recent paper in Trends in Biotechnology November 2004 issue pleas for a more realistic assessment of the biotechnology industry and what it can deliver. An abstract of the paper is below:

The myth of the biotech revolution
Paul Nightingale and Paul Martin
Trends in Biotechnology, Volume 22, Issue 11 , November 2004, Pages 564-569

The existence of a medicinal 'biotech revolution' has been widely accepted and promoted by academics, consultants, industry and government. This has generated expectations about significant improvements in the drug discovery process, healthcare and economic development that influence a considerable amount of policy-making. Here we present empirical evidence, from a variety of indicators, that shows that a range of outputs have failed to keep pace with increased research and development spending. Rather than producing revolutionary changes, medicinal biotechnology is following a well-established pattern of slow and incremental technology diffusion. Consequently, many expectations are wildly optimistic and over-estimate the speed and extent of the impact of biotechnology, suggesting that the assumptions underpinning much contemporary policymaking need to be rethought.

Conclusion
The data we have presented suggests that it is time to rethink the biotech revolution. Policy makers need to follow the FDA and move away from an increasingly discredited linear model of innovation that sees new drug and diagnostic products as little more than the application of basic research. Instead, policy needs to address the uncertain, systemic nature of technical change and the very long time scales between advances in basic knowledge and productivity improvements 23, 32 and 33.
The FDA's emphasis on the importance of getting our facts right is a welcome development because unrealistic expectations have had a major impact on government policy.
Undoubtedly, some of the
policy suggestions are intrinsically good ideas, such as promoting better knowledge transfer between industry, universities and the healthcare system, but successful policy needs to be based on sound evidence and a sense of proportion. This has not always been the case with biotechnology and there is now a substantial mismatch between the real world and the unrealistic expectations of policy-makers, consultants and social scientists.
Although we have hinted at an alternative model we can say very little at present about the long-term prospects for biotechnology and our data are compatible with a range of eventualities. A pessimistic perspective might highlight that the biotechnology revolution has been closely associated with a reductionist, genetic model of disease 37 and 38 that is increasingly being challenged by explanations that emphasize the interaction between environmental, lifestyle and biological factors across the life course [27]. Epidemiologists have already noted how the social distribution of a range of common disorders, such as obesity, stomach ulcers and heart disease, has radically changed in the last century, suggesting that the major determinants of these diseases are social rather than purely genetic in origin [39]. These environmental factors, such as poverty and smoking require comprehensive public health programmes rather than unproven high-tech solutions that are unlikely to be delivered in the short term [29]. This uncertainty about the timing and benefits of biotechnology suggests the need for regular checks against the evidence to avoid constructing shared expectations that have little empirical foundation.
Our concern is not the future but the present, and more particularly how current expectations and talk of revolutions help generate the social co-operation needed to deal with the very long-term lead times required to create new medicines. Unrealistic expectations are dangerous as they lead to poor investment decisions, misplaced hope, and distorted priorities, and can distract us from acting on the knowledge we already have about the prevention of illness and disease.

For the full article (for a fee), click HERE.

The recent vote in California that takes $3 billion to conduct embryonic stem cell research is an example of the false hope involved in some biotechnological research. Embryonic stem cell research has yet to help those who suffer from debilitating diseases, however, great work has been done in the arena of adult stem cell research, umbilical cord blood stem cell research, etc., without killing a human embryo.

In connection with this thought-provoking article from Trends in Biotechnology, click HERE to see an article from the Los Angeles Times.

In addition, an article from CBC shows the exciting treatment of patients using umbilical cord blood with stem cells. For the full article, click HERE.