Deepak Singh at bbgm ponders an article he read in the Financial Times that pairs drug discovery and serendipity. There is a role for serendipity in drug discovery, but the declining productivity of the pharma industry is not necessarily due to lazy scientists who can't innovate, he says. Systems biology is tough -- and managing and understanding all the data from these experiments is no easy task. "I will agree on one thing, though; pharma has to move away from rigid planning faster and towards the proof of concept/first in man approaches that many are now beginning to take," he writes.
To add flames to the fire, In the Pipeline reports on more layoffs at GSK, this time in the oncology group, by about 40 percent of its staff. "It looks like the company is moving one by one through its Centers of Excellence in Drug Discovery (CEDDs) and running a most excellent scythe through them," writes Derek Lowe.