Something New: Oct 20, 2011

Harvard Medical School has launched a new program, the Initiative in Systems Pharmacology, which In the Pipeline's Derek Lowe describes as "a big initiative in systems biology, which is an interdisciplinary opportunity if there ever was one." Harvard says the new initiative is part of the medical school's Program in Translational Science and Therapeutics, and that its two main goals are to increase researchers' knowledge of human disease mechanisms, and to more effectively translate their ideas, "improving the quality of drug candidates as they enter the clinical testing and regulatory approval process." But while this is all "worthy stuff," Lowe says, there still remain a few questions — what are the drug candidates that Harvard wants to improve the quality of, and how might they be picked? Lowe says the effort is certainly worth it, and that the researchers at Harvard are certainly up to the challenge. But, he adds, "it's also worth remembering Harvard's approach to licensing and industrial collaboration. Let's just say that they didn't get that endowment up to its present size by letting much slip through their fingers."