Newswise — The announcement by Pfizer to end its neuroscience discovery and early development efforts and re-allocate spending is part of a disappointing trend where drug companies are increasingly risk averse in their research investments, said Dr. Guy Caldwell, a University of Alabama Distinguished Research Professor in biological sciences.
The way to fill the gap is making a priority of government investment into fundamental research of neurological disorders, said Caldwell, who along with his wife, Dr. Kim Caldwell, lead a lab the uses microscopic worms as a model system to accelerate discovery for these diseases.
"Academic research into the molecular underpinnings of neurodegenerative disease has never been more exciting or fruitful," he said. "The advances that stem from government investment in this fundamental research have been exponentially accelerating. Labs like ours at The University of Alabama have numerous leads on new molecules and mechanisms that point to new avenues of therapy which are yet to examined in humans."
Despite these discoveries and increased understanding, labs are struggling to stay open, he said. “This impacts both the progress toward new treatments, as well as the training of students to fulfill the gap of physicians that is an urgent need for our aging population”
"Funding of biomedical science is becoming a lottery and a 'hunger games' mentality is emerging among researchers due to the limited resources," Caldwell said. "This again is an outcome of inadequate or inconsistent and, frankly, uncourageous public policy decisions as to where our tax dollars get allocated."
Caldwell said developing drug therapies for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases come with the challenges of, one, costly clinical trials for diseases of aging and, two, identifying patients early enough in a disease's progression to run an effective trial.
"Patients should rest assured that much of the research space that is being left behind by big pharma is still covered by smaller biotech companies, and investments by venture capital in next-generation therapies," Caldwell said. "The reality is the bigger companies are simply letting others do the risky groundwork before entering into agreements."
Still, investments in clinical trials is critically needed, he said.
The solution is increasing research funding to find additional biomarkers, like genetic or blood tests, he said.
"We are in the midst of a sea change in a revolution toward personalized medicine that will continue to give scientists more and better information to develop novel strategies of intervention," Caldwell said.
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