A deeper look at polar ice. An electric-car renaissance. The death and rebirth of major scientific experiments. Read on to discover what this year has in store
Posted 12.23.2009 at 3:01 pm
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Exclusive Patent Rights Countdown
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Our annual sci-tech forecast looks at what 2010 has in store for medicine, space, aviation, the environment, technology and entertainment.
Medicine
Big pharma teeters on the edge of the patent cliff
The end of patents on some of the biggest drugs means cheaper generics now but may mean fewer new drugs later
So long, Lipitor. See you later, Advair. This year marks the beginning of the so-called patent cliff, when pharmaceutical companies lose exclusive patent rights to many of their top-selling brand-name drugs. Companies could cede $140 billion in sales by 2016 as cheap generic versions move onto the market.
“The good news is that, at least in terms of the next 10 years, prescription-drug costs will probably decline or moderate for many consumers,” says Dan Carpenter, the co-director of Harvard University’s Initiative on Medications and Society. But the savings may leave tomorrow’s medicine cabinets bare. In November 2011, Pfizer will lose patent exclusivity on its cholesterol drug Lipitor, which reaped $12.4 billion in sales in 2008 and remains one of the most profitable drugs in history. And there are no new blockbuster drugs poised to take its place. The number of drugs approved annually by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has fallen from an average of 35 approvals in 1996 through 2001, to only 22 in 2002 through 2007. Some of this decline can be traced to tighter safety regulations, partially in response to problems with Vioxx, a prescription pain reliever that received FDA approval and was then voluntarily pulled from shelves in 2004 after studies showed that up to 139,000 people taking the drug had suffered heart attacks.
Yet without that $12 billion coming from Lipitor and other brand-name pharmaceuticals, funds for the R&D of new ones could drop significantly. That would hurt us all. Research by Frank Lichtenberg, a professor of business at Columbia University, has shown that the number of new drugs available correlates with higher life expectancy. “[Drug-development choices] have long-term consequences,” says professor of strategic management Stuart Graham of the Georgia Institute of Technology. “We’re making investment decisions today about the effects of new kinds of drugs we’ll have in a decade.”
In anticipation of these changes, by 2011 drugmaker Eli Lilly aims to reduce costs by $1 billion and cut 5,500 jobs. Other companies are rushing to scoop up the few remaining promising drugs already in the pipeline; Pfizer recently finalized its purchase of Wyeth, and Roche merged with Genentech.
Ultimately, though, the end of the blockbuster-drug era may mean fundamental changes in how Big Pharma operates. Until now, thve companies have focused on developing relatively simple, profitable drugs such as statins and antidepressants. To stay profitable, companies may have to concentrate on more-complex drugs for obesity, cancer, and immunological and neurological diseases. For example, Pfizer recently announced a new drug for osteoarthritis. For the millions of people who suffer from intractable diseases, the change can’t come soon enough.
—Corey Binns
A 21ST-CENTURY MEDICINE CHEST
Four Drugs Set to Hit Pharmacy Shelves This Year
- All-in-One Heart Pill: POLYPILL
Ferrer Laboratories brings out a pill that includes three drugs to protect against heart attacks and costs less to buy than the individual pills. Combining aspirin and drugs to lower blood pressure and cholesterol, the pill could make patients more likely to take their medicine. - Safer Blood Thinner: PRADAXA
Boehringer Ingelheim’s Pradaxa slashes the risk of stroke as effectively as the 50-plus-year-old Coumadin (warfarin) but doesn’t require the same kind of constant monitoring for internal bleeding and is easier on the liver. - Faster Weight Loss: QNEXA
A widely prescribed obesity drug called phentermine, combined with a drug originally used for epilepsy, is California-based Vivus’s recipe for Qnexa, a capsule that leads to nearly twice the weight loss of phentermine alone: 15 percent of a patient’s body weight in 52 weeks. - More diabetes relief: EXENATIDE ONCE WEEKLY
Eli Lilly/Amylin worked with Alkermes to package the injectable drug exenatide into microspheres for slow release into the blood. It’s the first once-weekly drug for Type 2 diabetes.—Carina Storrs
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Its hard to feel sorry for the drug companies when they charge us more money for perscriptions than the Canadians or Europeans pay for the same drug.
To paraphrase the old joke: "For the past 40 years we've been told that a practical electric car will be ready within 5 years". I'd bet that 40 years from now we'll still be waiting for one.
An electric car is only practical for people living in urban areas. Those same areas are also suitable for subways or light rail. That's why electric cars will never really be widely accepted. Do you really think that some guy living out in rural Nebraska, with subzero winter temperatures, is going to buy a $40,000 Chevy Volt?
Cheaper Drugs=Help for the people who need drugs but can't afford the Brand Name ones.
Drug cunpanys started out with thier own money or money from investors with a promise of financial return. The cost of drugs to us include money for research and development and what do we get in return? More expensive drugs that include charges for further research and development. Something is wrong with this picture.
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I think there should be some sort of accountability for the way that drug companies spend their profits. It's a bitter pill (pun?) to take knowing that we pay more for drugs than Canada and Europe, but if I could SEE how much the drug companies reinvest that money, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with paying the big bucks. But absent that information, I really have to wonder where that money goes to?
Sure, generics make things cheaper, but then there is less money for research and development. IF the drug companys actually spend as much on research and development as they say.
In the long run, I guess it's a trust game. Pay the big bucks and trust that the big drug companies are doing the right things with their profits. But money is power and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Bring on the generics!
HJ
The AirBus A400 is six billion dollars over budget? SIX BILLION? They had better sell a LOT of airplanes to make up for those numbers!
If memory serves me right, the A380 was quite a bit over budget as well!
I don't know who's running the show over there at AirBus, but they need to fire some managers before they run themselves into a bankrupcy!
SIX BILLION? That's like a car company bailout! Man!
HJ
Thank God the electrics are almost here! The internal combustion engine is soooo ineffecient, it's actually more effcient at heating your home then it is pushing your car down the road.
I understand that we have a huge investment in infrastructure to support the internal combustion engine, but if we continue on that logic, we should still be riding horses!
Putting the electric motor in the wheels is simply a stroke of genius! If you consider that every time two pieces of metal rub together (pistons, gears, etc), putting the electric motors in the wheels reduces all the friction of an internal combustion engine to rubber meeting the road. It won't get no better until we are all driving hovercars!
We are making constant strides in battery research thanks to President Obama and his investments in that field. Sure, right now they yield only 40-100 miles in a charge (only?), but soon we will be driving 500 miles on a charge. Plus, we will be able to use them to flatten out the power grid and make solar and wind power more practical.
And it might be within 10 years that you'll have a battery in your basement that can run your house for a week! You'll never know that some guy ran into a power pole down the road and the local grid went out for six hours!
Die, internal combustion engine, die! Get your stinky, polluting, ineffectient butt on our the door and make way for some REAL innovation! YEAH BABY!
HJ
@riff_raff: You work for an oil company by any chance? It's sad patents were bought out that were left undeveloped for the sake of squeezing every last drop of oil from our wells. Electric cars only need an improvement in battery technology and that is far from impossible as you make it seem. The issue with subzero temperatures, although a limited market, seems like there would be a relatively easy solution. Wrap it in insulation and have some kind of warming wires run through the insulation to keep the battery warm during charging. All I seem to see on popsci is constant improvements in battery technology and a recent development for insulation that is more efficient than a vacuum. Gasoline will die a definite death. Only a matter a time. I believe sooner than later if the U.S. can lead the initiative.
Better than the example of the "soon-to-be" electric car is the video phone. I believe it was around 1955 that AT&T showcased a videophone and said it would be a common thing within a decade. I still have never met someone who has a videophone. Not even the commanders of the greatest single nuclear force in the world (Minot AFB, North Dakota) have them, or were EVER authorized to even look into them. I've been in command posts all around the world and was a resource advisor in Minot (my office was right outside the commander's). We had no videophone. We didn't have remnants of any old system that might have been. 50 years later that the AT&T promise there has been nothing.
Better than the example of the "soon-to-be" electric car is the video phone. I believe it was around 1955 that AT&T showcased a videophone and said it would be a common thing within a decade. I still have never met someone who has a videophone. Not even the commanders of the greatest single nuclear force in the world (Minot AFB, North Dakota) have them, or were EVER authorized to even look into them. I've been in command posts all around the world and was a resource advisor in Minot (my office was right outside the commander's). We had no videophone. We didn't have remnants of any old system that might have been. 50 years later that the AT&T promise there has been nothing.
Maybe you've never seen/used Skype? It's free.
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Those big pharmaceutical companies have little to worry about with their patents expiring, because the future of drugs isn't in the mass marketing of a single pill, within a decade the pills we take will be manufactured specifically for our own bodies, containing ratios of chemicals tailored specifically to the individual. And people don't realize that the biggest driver pushing the price of pharmaceuticals way up in this country is litigation, which there is very little the drug companies can do about, except stopping research into new drugs that could possibly have bad side effects a decade after they're approved.
Also what nobody realizes, the real problem for electric cars is they only marginally change our energy consumption while being far less effective at moving things. Where do you get the power to charge your electric vehicle? Likely a coal burning power plant... which is good for the environment how?
This magazine is kinda funny, because all the content is about some pretty advanced and amazing science, but it sometimes seems to be written by a bunch of dreaming hippies lol.
I'm surprised that in the part where they talk about the people who's reputations are on the line they didn't mention the guy who claims to have created the EmDrive..
Controversial as it may be I still want one if it works. And China is currently working on attempting to validate his data. If so, a nobel could be around the corner. If not, well, he's going bankrupt and absolutely no one will remember him, though physicists might use his name as an insult in the future..
The energy efficiency of a Toyota Camry is rated around 0.28 km/MJ. The energy efficiency of a Tesla Roadster is 1.14 km/MJ (assume electricity generated by natural gas). A 300% increase is not what I would call "marginal improvement".
Please take into account that there is only one way to get oil (invade the Middle East), where there are many ways we can get electricity.
The German, the French, the Japanese, even the Chinese are developing electric cars. It is sad that we have to watch Detroit die. Please, let us not lose our competitive edge.
Personally, I do not trust GM with electric cars. They could easily fail on purpose just to prove it won't work. But it does not matter whether Volt fail or not, because the Mercedes Benz electric, and lots of other electric cars will succeed.
I only ask that they, as businessmen, would make a genuine attempt to meet the demands of the public. In other words, there should not be 50'000 back-orders on electric cars. Just make them already.
haha! did anyone notice we're gonna be MICROWAVING the little ice we have left!? YESSS!!! if we're gonna do this wrong, let's at least make it catastrophic.
Hi,
Corey Binns writes, Jan. 2010, (Guide to the Year in Science 2010) "Pfizer recently announced a new drug for osteoarthritis."
Been looking for it - no mention anywhere I can see.
Anybody know this drug?
Thanks,
akcol
@akol
www.wyeth.com/ClinicalTrialListings?query=Osteoarthritis
In your article about the airbus A400M, you stated that its counter-rotating propellers on a turboprop were an aviation first. You are incorrect. Do a search on the Russian TU-95 Bear bomber. It was powered by turboprops with counter-rotating propellers in the late 50's and was around for a very long time.
Ooops richlinds, ya didn't really read the article did ya.
The article explains the difference between counter-rotating and contra-rotating propellers. The Airbus has counter-rotating props (the engines each have one prop, the two engines on the same side turn in opposite directions) and the Bear has contra-rotating props (all engines have two props that turn in opposite directions)
Its all in the vernacular, y'know.
Amazing. Is science just cool or what? I mean really.
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Well I think if a huge company sees the potential for a new "blockbuster drug" that they will pump enough money into the R&D to make it a reality. Even if they aren't making as much money as they used to in a few years if something looks profitable they will just have to play their cards right and make sure they invest in the right drugs. IDK though, just my two cents.
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