Business/Financial Desk
| May 13, 2003, Tuesday
An Early
Step on Collaboration on Cancer Drugs
By ANDREW POLLACK (NYT) 871 words
Late Edition - Final , Section C ,
Page 1 , Column 3
ABSTRACT
- Pharmaceutical companies are beginning to
contemplate new collaborative efforts to
lower cost and speed development of drugs
for cancer; task force will present
preliminary proposal on collaborative drug
development to pharmaceutical industry chief
executives at meeting in Washington on June
6; Dr Gabriel Leung, co-chairman of task
force, who was head of oncology at Pharmacia
until its recent acquisition by Pfizer, says
drug industry consortium will conduct or
finance research aimed at understanding
underlying mechanisms of cancer; Robert
Ingram, vice chairman for pharmaceuticals at
GlaxoSmithKline, says pharmaceutical
companies need to cooperate on drug
development because drugs in future will be
tailored for patients based on their genetic
makeup; photos (M) Pharmaceutical companies
are beginning to contemplate new
collaborative efforts to lower the cost and
speed the development of drugs for cancer,
according to executives involved in the
effort.
The ideas for such initiatives are still
in their infancy and may never come to
fruition, these executives said. Still, a
task force will present a preliminary
proposal on collaborative drug development
to pharmaceutical industry chief executives
at a meeting in Washington on June 6. The
task force is expected to propose the
creation of a research organization modeled
partly on Sematech, a research consortium
set up by the semiconductor industry in the
1980's to improve basic techniques for
making computer chips.
How multi-packs work: A
multi-pack is an archive package that saves
you money by allowing you to pre-purchase a
set number of articles in bulk at a reduced
price. You can then debit from your
multi-pack and quickly access articles from
the archive at your convenience over the
lifetime of the multi-pack.
Once you purchase an
article, you may view it as often as you
like over the next 90 days. Archive articles
do not include photos, charts or graphics
Click here to purchase article if you
already own an archive article pack.
|