2005-10-05 14:52:26弓長
Judge for Yourself
最近無聊到在讀這種產業分析報告，擔心自己的行業經過高度成長期後，
會不會向所有的高科技項目一樣，到最後只是曇花一現泡沫化了呢 。
關鍵是市場飽和後，大家還有錢賺嗎 ?
圖: 現為有近八百年歷史的 Fenland Polytechnic 劍橋大學之管理學院。
創立於 1990 年的劍橋大學管理學院最近由 Judge Institute of Management Studies 改名為 Judge Business School ， Judge 改名只是迎合全球商學院/管理學院都以 Business School 命名的潮流吧。
e.g. Judge Business School vs. London Business School
該棟建築原為劍橋大學之教學醫院 Addenbrooke’s Hospital，
也許那棟建築裡面有專家可以給我們答案，你相信哦 ?
Judge Business School
http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/
Wary of Bioinformatics Bust, Biopharma Spends its IT Dollars More Wisely
By Bernadette Toner, editor, BioInform
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 4 (GenomeWeb News) - The lessons of bioinformatics’ recent boom and bust cycle have not been lost on Rainer Fuchs, vice president of research informatics and operations at Biogen Idec.
Fuchs, who spoke at Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s inaugural Bridging Discovery and IT conference here last week, said that he’s ”seeing a shift from lofty expectations” about what bioinformatics can accomplish ”to more realistic, smaller projects with a better [return on investment].”
Fuchs asked for a show of hands from those attendees who saw ”significant cost savings” in drug discovery from their investment in informatics over the last several years.
Not one hand was raised.
The response could be attributed to the heightened exuberance that swept the industry in the wake of the Human Genome Project, when market research firm Frontline projected that bioinformatics could reduce the cost of drug discovery and development by 33 percent by 2004, and Boston Consulting Group estimated that informatics could shave $280 million off the $800 million cost of developing a typical drug.
The reality, as the response to Fuchs’ request highlighted, has been quite different. Not only have internal investments in bioinformatics failed to pay off, but the informatics software market has not lived up to its promise of half a decade ago.
Fuchs cited ”anecdotal evidence” that most biopharma companies have shifted their informatics investments away from cutting-edge technologies and toward ”tried and true” methods. ”There’s a move away from investing in new technology toward improving the use of current technologies,” he said.
As an example, Fuchs cited the ”changing mix” of his own informatics budget between 2001 and 2005. The shift has been toward projects that fall under the heading of ”operational efficiency” -- lab automation, workflow management, LIMS, and other projects with ”easily demonstrable benefits” -- and away from ”strategic” investments that carry more risk and prove much more difficult to calculate ROI.
”It’s easy to measure improvements in efficiency,” Fuchs said, but efficacy and safety are other matters. In an age of ever-tighter budgetary constraints, pharma’s long development timelines make if very difficult -- if not impossible -- to prove that a new technology has led to a better drug.
But even though discovery firms are less willing to adopt unproven informatics tools than they may have been a few years ago, it appears that they’re more likely to turn to a vendor for the tools that they do use. Fuchs said that his team spent 20 percent of its 2005 budget on in-house systems, a drop from 36 percent of its budget in 2001. On the buy side of the equation, 33 percent of his group’s current budget is spent on commercial informatics tools, up from 25 percent in 2001.
”The idea that we need a custom system for every project is passing,” he said.
But this new era of caution doesn’t mean that discovery firms aren’t trying out new technologies. Even though Fuchs warned that new informatics tools for pathway analysis and biosimulation could be ”the next land of unfulfilled promise,” he recommended that informatics managers reserve a modest amount of ”play money” within their budgets to invest in those technologies.
Some risk will always be necessary to remain competitive in the drug discovery industry, Fuchs noted, but informatics groups who are wary of repeating past mistakes should only ”sprinkle” their informatics profiles with these higher-risk investments.
會不會向所有的高科技項目一樣，到最後只是曇花一現泡沫化了呢 。
關鍵是市場飽和後，大家還有錢賺嗎 ?
圖: 現為有近八百年歷史的 Fenland Polytechnic 劍橋大學之管理學院。
創立於 1990 年的劍橋大學管理學院最近由 Judge Institute of Management Studies 改名為 Judge Business School ， Judge 改名只是迎合全球商學院/管理學院都以 Business School 命名的潮流吧。
e.g. Judge Business School vs. London Business School
該棟建築原為劍橋大學之教學醫院 Addenbrooke’s Hospital，
也許那棟建築裡面有專家可以給我們答案，你相信哦 ?
Judge Business School
http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/
Wary of Bioinformatics Bust, Biopharma Spends its IT Dollars More Wisely
By Bernadette Toner, editor, BioInform
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 4 (GenomeWeb News) - The lessons of bioinformatics’ recent boom and bust cycle have not been lost on Rainer Fuchs, vice president of research informatics and operations at Biogen Idec.
Fuchs, who spoke at Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s inaugural Bridging Discovery and IT conference here last week, said that he’s ”seeing a shift from lofty expectations” about what bioinformatics can accomplish ”to more realistic, smaller projects with a better [return on investment].”
Fuchs asked for a show of hands from those attendees who saw ”significant cost savings” in drug discovery from their investment in informatics over the last several years.
Not one hand was raised.
The response could be attributed to the heightened exuberance that swept the industry in the wake of the Human Genome Project, when market research firm Frontline projected that bioinformatics could reduce the cost of drug discovery and development by 33 percent by 2004, and Boston Consulting Group estimated that informatics could shave $280 million off the $800 million cost of developing a typical drug.
The reality, as the response to Fuchs’ request highlighted, has been quite different. Not only have internal investments in bioinformatics failed to pay off, but the informatics software market has not lived up to its promise of half a decade ago.
Fuchs cited ”anecdotal evidence” that most biopharma companies have shifted their informatics investments away from cutting-edge technologies and toward ”tried and true” methods. ”There’s a move away from investing in new technology toward improving the use of current technologies,” he said.
As an example, Fuchs cited the ”changing mix” of his own informatics budget between 2001 and 2005. The shift has been toward projects that fall under the heading of ”operational efficiency” -- lab automation, workflow management, LIMS, and other projects with ”easily demonstrable benefits” -- and away from ”strategic” investments that carry more risk and prove much more difficult to calculate ROI.
”It’s easy to measure improvements in efficiency,” Fuchs said, but efficacy and safety are other matters. In an age of ever-tighter budgetary constraints, pharma’s long development timelines make if very difficult -- if not impossible -- to prove that a new technology has led to a better drug.
But even though discovery firms are less willing to adopt unproven informatics tools than they may have been a few years ago, it appears that they’re more likely to turn to a vendor for the tools that they do use. Fuchs said that his team spent 20 percent of its 2005 budget on in-house systems, a drop from 36 percent of its budget in 2001. On the buy side of the equation, 33 percent of his group’s current budget is spent on commercial informatics tools, up from 25 percent in 2001.
”The idea that we need a custom system for every project is passing,” he said.
But this new era of caution doesn’t mean that discovery firms aren’t trying out new technologies. Even though Fuchs warned that new informatics tools for pathway analysis and biosimulation could be ”the next land of unfulfilled promise,” he recommended that informatics managers reserve a modest amount of ”play money” within their budgets to invest in those technologies.
Some risk will always be necessary to remain competitive in the drug discovery industry, Fuchs noted, but informatics groups who are wary of repeating past mistakes should only ”sprinkle” their informatics profiles with these higher-risk investments.