The 25 most influential people in biopharma today: Francis Collins, Director, National Institutes of Health
"Changing the development paradigm!" No wonder US NIH went to the dark side!!!
Many subscribers will be familiar with this person: Francis Collins, Director, National Institutes of Health.
This is him leaving NIH:
A Farewell to Dr. Francis Collins
“In 2017, he was asked to continue in his role by President Donald Trump, and in 2021, by President Joe Biden. The longest serving presidentially appointed NIH Director, Dr. Collins' impact on biomedical research and the health of the nation is difficult to overstate”
Yes, his impact on biomedical research is difficult to overstate, because it was so horrendously evil. This is him in 2012:
Francis Collins - The 25 most influential people in biopharma today
His tagline is: “Changing the development paradigm” He certainly did that!
”When Francis Collins took over at the National Institutes of Health in 2009, the scientific community was abuzz with the fact that he's a practicing Christian. Soon after, the chatter moved beyond science and religion and into the polarized politics of today's United States, with a renewed debate over stem cell research.
Now, Collins has achieved something that not only defies controversy, but also stands to change the way treatments are discovered and adopted. He persuaded Congress to create a new National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, and got it funded to the tune of $575 million.
Yes, that's less than the $1 billion he asked for. But it's also more than half a billion dollars, at a time when deficit is a dirty word. That's partly because the center is a difficult project to argue against. Who wouldn't want to find ways to speed a revolutionary new treatment's trip from lab to bedside?
"Patients suffering from debilitating and life threatening diseases do not have the luxury to wait the 13 years it currently takes to translate new scientific discoveries into treatments," Collins said the day President Barack Obama signed the NCATS bill into law.
The new center couldn't come at a better time for pharma; R&D productivity stats are dismal, so faster development would be a godsend for the industry. One of NCATS new grant programs, the Cures Acceleration Network, is aimed directly at helping promising drugs overcome bureaucratic obstacles, the journal Nature reports.
Critics question NCATS' chances at smoothing drug, device and diagnostics development when Big Pharma hasn't--and Big Pharma spends up to 14 times that amount with limited success.
But several recent R&D successes--new drugs that won FDA approval in record time--are examples of another Collins credo, personalized medicine. Using genetic markers of disease to create new treatments and select the patients for them is not only something Collins has championed for years, but promises to streamline development, too. From Phase II trials directly to approval, as one Roche drug achieved, is a shortcut NCATS might well decide to study”
What do you make of that?
I can tell you what I think. His whole time at NIH was about putting the skids under drug development timelines, period. If you don’t get that from the above, please read it again.
“From Phase II trials directly to approval, as one Roche drug achieved, is a shortcut NCATS might well decide to study”
Please, share your thoughts on Francis Collins’ tenure at NIH.
The public utterances of Drs Collins & Fauci through the convolutions of the SARS CoV2 saga were revealing. Trashing the proposers of Great Barrington Declaration and the efficacy of ivermectin prepared us for what was to come. On 31 December 2021 Collins was given a prime radio slot by BBC4 in "Thought for the Day", this was 10 days after the UK government had wrapped a 4-page vaccine propaganda sheet round every newspaper (not the FT) urging the population to get a booster. Collins was introduced by Martha Kearney as "Dr Francis Collins former director of the US National Institutes of Health, one of the world’s foremost medical research centres". Listeners were treated to a folksy run-though of Dr C's medical career, how he reconciled Christianity with science, how he prayed when confronted by "the worst pandemic in more than a century", how he worked "a hundred hours a week". Then his prayers were answered "just over a year ago the rigorous clinical trials to test the vaccines revealed an astounding 95% protection against infection I confess that I cried, and then I gave thanks to God." His words to a hesitant parishioner: "God has given you a gift in the vaccine, but you have to open the gift, give thanks and then roll up your sleeve."
Extraordinary times!
The theory in 2008 was to shorten the (dubious and gamed) pre-market testing and study, and substantially beef up the post-market surveillance. That was why FDA Sentinel was Congressionally mandated. Near real-time surveillance, analysis and rapid recalls. Corruption won.