The Arrivals

If you've made up your mind
to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should
always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only
publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look
good. We must publish both kinds of results. -RF

If we could make one change that could turn the cargo cults into real airports it would be to create a place where the results of all experiments are published. In Cargo Cult Airplane terms, what cargo planes were scheduled to land and did they report on the landing? If you are looking for a big deal struck between big pharma and biotechnology (the departure) you will have no problem finding the publicity. If you are looking for the results of a big pharma/biotech deal you will have to begin conducting research.

Let's look at a deal between Pfizer and Scripps back in 2006.

Under the terms of the agreement, Pfizer will pay Scripps Research $100 million over a five-year period, during which time scientists from Pfizer and Scripps Research will work together to identify and perform specific projects of mutual interest.
Pfizer will pay Scripps Research milestones and royalties on therapeutic compounds created through the collaboration. In addition, Pfizer will have the first right to license many discoveries made at Scripps Research during the agreement.

This particular deal was given journalistic coverage by the San Diego Union Tribune. (Beware the trade PR publications such as Fiercetech and Xconomy)

Pfizer would pay Scripps $20 million a year for five years, he said. Scripps would have full control over how the money is spent.

In return, Scripps would give Pfizer the right to review all of the institute's discoveries, plus the right to license up to 47 percent of them. Pfizer would be able to make such actions only during the five-year funding period.

In order to evaluate the results of this collaboration it is important to know that Pfizer was given access to all of Scripps publicly funded research, not just the work initiated and researched during the five year $100 million deal. It makes the 2011 arrival time even more interesting.

The Pfizer deal replaced Scripps' controversial 10-year alliance with Novartis. The institute came under scrutiny in the early 1990s after the NIH questioned aspects of its initial deal with Sandoz Pharmaceuticals Corp., who later became Novartis. According to the Union Tribune:

During a congressional inquiry, federal officials said the agreement gave Sandoz too much control over Scripps' research priorities, stifled academic freedom and prevented smaller biotechnology companies from competing for access to Scripps' scientific discoveries. The partnership allowed Sandoz to license nearly all of the institute's inventions.

Some legislators suggested that the Scripps-Sandoz deal made the federal government, through its grants to Scripps, a patron of a foreign corporation.

We certainly don't want that to happen. We want pills that make people better when they get sick. After the Scripps-Sandoz partnership, the NIH established policies to clarify how institutions that receive its funds should enter into licensing agreements with for-profit companies.

The institutions' responsibilities include:

Preserving the academic freedom of its scientists.

Ensuring that findings based on taxpayer-funded research are disclosed in a timely manner.

Not entering into agreements that permit a corporate partner to acquire exclusive licensing rights to a discovery without plans to actively develop and commercialize it.

Promoting the manufacturing of its products in the United States.

That is a positive outcome, although not the one intended. A cargo plane landed here, bringing with it a new set of rules. If you are a drug exec or a politician in charge of funding massive organizations like the NIH, this is cargo. This set of rules effects how you do your job. It effects how scientists do their jobs.

What did we get from this deal? What did Pfizer get? One benefit was offered up from the citizens of Palm Beach County Florida. They ponied up $310 million to get Scripps to set up shop in Florida and bring with them high paying jobs. A quick Google search finds a story of hope via the Pfizer deal and an unrelated spin-off from Scripps, Xcovery. On their website Xcovery lists one job. Scripps Florida lists 3 jobs. 4 jobs currently available after $410 million. Are both investments drying up or was there a surge in hiring and thus scientific progress is ? We can't say.

Another potentially related story, "Scripps Research/Pfizer Team Produces a Potential New Painkiller". The team reports on the promising new compound in the April 24, 2009 issue of the journal Chemistry & Biology. The Cravatt group began collaborating with Pfizer in 2003 however to pursue, among other goals, development of fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) inhibitors. This collaboration (began in 2003) led to the discovery of a promising class of inhibitors known as piperidine ureas. This potential painkiller appears to have been sold off as a research tool and can be purchased at various chemical companies. Although not a blockbuster, this is scientific progress. This is a cargo plane that landed with an alternative cargo. It all began in 2003 however.

What really became of this deal? The extensive Pfizer pipeline may contain candidates from this collaboration. Novartis may have picked over the carcass leaving little behind after their ten year manipulation of scientific activity at Scripps. For the Cargo Cult Scientist, this is where research begins. If you want to know what the leaders have been up to you start with a press release. You wait the advertised amount of time and you draw a conclusion on what happened. It really is no different than a laboratory experiment. But who is conducting this research? The NIH and Pfizer executives are the foxes guarding the coup. Quite often a failing project begins to lose favor and piece by piece it begins to disappear. Which brings us back to Feynmans rule of reporting results regardless of outcome. By simply trying to evaluate the outcome of a $100 million dollar deal, we begin to see the complexity of such a human undertaking. Yet we know it is being done everyday by some group of people. They are who we are studying in this research project. What did they do with the money and how are they reporting the value of the investment?

If in fact the drug industry has lost over a trillion dollars in the past decade, this $100 million deal is small potatoes. It tells a story however. Each deal tells a story that is fascinating and worthy of research. There is the psychology of the major players. The structure of scientific research organizations can be studied. Did the Pfizer/Scripps deal solve the productivity issues facing big pharma/biotech R&D?