ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom was invited to be a regular contributor to the very popular website called Science 2.0. Their site traffic is about 1 million visits per month, and together with our new recent media exposure three quotes in USA Today we believe that the ACSH message will soon be heard by many more people.
His first piece, entitled Drug Discovery Even When You Win, You Still Can Lose takes a look at the travails of Vertex, one of the pioneers in the fight against hepatitis C. Although they were arguably the leading company in the fight against the infection, and got the first useful approved drug in the process, things didn t work out well.
This is the nature of the drug discovery business.
Here is a quote from the article: It would be almost impossible to find a better example of the difficulties that face the pharmaceutical industry than the campaign against hepatitis C.
Unfortunately, this example is now at the expense of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a small, but top-notch drug discovery organization that began as a biotech startup in 1989.
