Collaboration as the key to turning around the drug discovery business (Part 5) – a Monte Carlo Simulation

There is widespread appreciation that the traditional business model for drug discovery and development is under pressure from all sides.  The easier health issues have been addressed, the harder ones remain.  The challenges are real.

An overemphasis on focusing on immediate maximum ROI for minimal investment in each asset has led to a literal drought in investment for truly innovative methods.  An overemphasis on any individual asset, naturally undervalues the methods (eggs valued more than hens).  Clearly, everyone in the ecosystem has tremendous challenges, only exacerbated by the lack the need for redundant infrastructure (i.e. every company with discovery expertise must evolve or partner development and clinical expertise to realize a premium).  Finally, NPV analyses undervalue early assets and overvalue later assets.  Although the data have been available for years from McKinsey’s Monte Carlo analysis here: http://www.ceoexpress.com/asp/mckinseyalls4.asp?id=m0111 - the opportunities for those innovating and implications for those partnering are just now materializing:

“Pharma’s licensing strategy has a serious flaw: deals are often struck too late to generate maximum value. A Monte Carlo simulation of 10,000 licensing agreements shows that pharma companies would capture the maximum value in 85 percent of all cases by acquiring the rights to a drug in the early (preclinical) stage of development even if that meant paying a lot more than these companies now offer for early rights. The take-away: Pharma companies are overdiscounting for the uncertainty of preclinical licensing deals"

We see more natural, frictionless collaboration as the key to unlocking the nascent value in everyone's individual optimized IP and value-added services (see parts 1-4).

For full context, find the link to each entry of our 12-part series, "Collaboration is the Key to Turning Around the Drug Discovery Business" using the links below:

Read Part 1: Collaboration as the key for turning around the drug discovery business – The Problem

Read Part 2: Collaboration as the key for turning around the drug discovery business – The Hypothesis

Read Part 3: Collaboration as the key for turning around the drug discovery business – A Solution

Read Part 4: Collaboration as the key to turning around the drug discovery business – Collaboration and Innovation

Read Part 5: Collaboration as the key to turning around the drug discovery business - A Monte Carlo Simulation

Read Part 6: Collaboration as the key to turning around the drug discovery business - Technology can Make Things Easier

Read Part 7: Collaboration as the key to turning around the drug discovery business: Collaboration = Leverage

Read Part 8: Collaboration as the key to turning around the drug discovery business – Standards

Especially read Part 9:  Collaboration as the key to turning around the drug discovery business - Collaborate Better

Part 10:  Collaboration as the key to turning around the drug discovery business - Learning from eBay, NASDAQ, Airlines, & Hollywood

Part 11: Collaborative as the key to turning around the drug discovery business - The Future

Part 12: Collaboration as the key to turning around the drug discovery business

P.S. Beyond collaboration as a more enlightened approach to science, here are the top 5 practical reasons collaborative scientists rock with CDD: 5 Reasons Why Collaborative Scientists Use CDD

You can also download the full series “Collaboration as the key to turning around the drug discovery business” by Barry Bunin as a pdf document:

This blog is authored by members of the CDD Vault community. CDD Vault is a hosted drug discovery informatics platform that securely manages both private and external biological and chemical data. It provides core functionality including chemical registration, structure activity relationship, chemical inventory, and electronic lab notebook capabilities!

CDD Vault: Drug Discovery Informatics your whole project team will embrace!