IS THIS THE END FOR 'FIND IT, FILE IT, FLOG IT?'

Let's make sure it is...

WHAT THE DEVIL IS ‘FIND IT, FILE IT, FLOG IT?’

That’s the name I gave to big pharma’s strategy for developing drugs, in the book of the same name, in 2015. The picture below, kindly donated at the time by Dr Graham Cox, a former pharma marketing executive, describes it:

The reigning paradigm of drug development, courtesy Expert Witness Dr Graham Cox.

Here we see a ‘gifted’ scientist who has found a compound from the patent library that is showing some promise in the test tube.

He’s having an ‘eureka’ moment.

We see that our eager scientist phones his boss, who is under pressure from above to move compounds into development. Rather than the boss asking some basic questions about the suitability of the compound for the rigours of development for market, he is more than happy to hear the news that the finding has potential…

…another candidate for the valley of death is sent into development—only one in 250 ever makes it. The rest fall to the cutting room floor :(

That’s enough of the problems…