Should peer review be a crowd review?

a well balanced opinion in the Annals of Emergency Medicine
the article is downloadable freely:
http://www.annemergmed.com/article/PIIS0196064410017294/fulltext

Open Source Biomarker Company

GnuBio is a new Harvard University spinout that is poised to become an "eBay of Biomarkers," according to founder John Boyce. Boyce, who spent several years at Cambridge-based genome sequencer Helicos Biosciences Corp., has joined with Harvard professor of physics and engineering Dave Weitz and Jessica Tonani, former associate director of product marketing for Santa Clara, Calif.-based gene sequencing company Affymetrix Inc., to create a company that is part genome sequencing, part database management, part social network. It promises to join together millions of biologicial samples that are currently siloed at institutes around the world, and to do it using an open source platform.


to read more: 


http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2010/05/31/daily32-GnuBio-launches-as-open-source-genome-sequencing-startup.html

Pharma will not embrace open source anytime soon

Open-source is a form of knowledge networking. The blog post below (WSJ Health Blog) tries to justify why pharma is afraid to go the way most industries went some time ago. Interestingly, one day you hear the excuse for pharma decline is "too much regulation", another is "lack of regulations", as argued below. I suspect the real problems are elsewhere...what is your take ?

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/12/13/report-life-science-companies-not-rushing-to-social-networking/

Report: Life Science Companies Not Rushing to Social Networking

By Katherine Hobson

The FDA hasn’t yet weighed in on how pharma should be using social media without running afoul of the agency’s rules on drug marketing.

And that, says a report from Deloitte, is one of the chief reasons more life sciences companies haven’t embraced social networking more aggressively.

The report — based on interviews with life sciences company executives and an online survey of 208 life sciences marketing and risk management professionals — finds that while 41% of respondents say their company currently uses online social networks to seek or disseminate information, and 21% say it plans to, 38% say it has no plans to do so.

Even after the FDA issues guidance, 53% of respondents expect there to be confusion about how life sciences companies can use things like Facebook and Twitter.  Some 28% say their companies are waiting to see from others’ experiences what the return on investment in social media efforts will be.

Of those respondents who are already engaged in social media, more than half say they’re using them to disseminate information, 42% to proactively seek information and 23% to react or respond to information posted on an online social network.

There are “significant” risks for companies to using social media. Deloitte says data collection is least risky since most social network users have already agreed to swap personal data for the free use of the network. It’s the information dissemination that has the big risks, because of the FDA’s marketing rules. The agency “worries that conversation could result in off-label promotion, unfair or unbalanced portrayals of therapy risks and benefits and failure to report adverse events,” the report says.

Novartis, for example, was chided by the FDA this summer for information generated by the “Facebook Share” widget on the drug maker’s website for a cancer drug.

Image: iStockphoto

Cloud - sourcing

It is not a child mispronouncing "crowd", it is a legit business term. This one comes from Adaptavant:


Stick your head in the clouds.

The competitive global marketplace requires that companies think on a larger scale in order to thrive. Today it isn't about thinking flat, it is about thinking up... thinking in the clouds. 

Cloud process outsourcing enables businesses to gain access to people with specialized expertise, diverse business philosophies, and unique skill sets - without extending their infrastructure. Instead of spending valuable resources to develop in-house expertise over time, industry educated experts are available on demand to address important business challenges. Utilizing the "cloud" minimizes time to project completion and maximizes access to the smartest global talent. Companies are quickly able to scale up and enhance overall performance.

Also check:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudsourcing

The science of open innovation

University of Cambridge published several reports on the topic. Not surprisingly, one industry absent in their evaluation is pharma / biotech.
http://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/ctm/teg/openinnovation.html

Open source in basic research

there is no reason why the same approach should not be applied to clinical research...

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/02/crowdsourcing-rewires-harvard-medical-researchers-brain/

Transparency - a conflict in open source business model?

True "open source" model requires complete transparency, that is all data - good and bad - to be shared with everyone. That is the only way in which meaningful input could be received. This present an obvious conflict with the current model of secrecy in development practiced by pharma companies. Yes, they speak loudly about "open innovation", but in fact they give access to selected individuals or organizations, who can see limited data. So, more of the same, just a bit broader. At this pace it will take pharma a few decades to be where software industry was in the beginning of this century...

Health 2.0 in "The Economist"

An interesting online debate in "The Economist". http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/189

"The Economist" editors state:
"This house believes that any loss of privacy from digitising health care will be more than compensated for by the welfare gains from increased efficiency."
However, the result and some comments show how many people still live in dark ages - sadly many of descending voices are from health professionals...

More on Health 2.0

 http://www.health2con.com/about-us/#

this is the beginning of the end of clinical study "subjects"- what a derogatory term anyway -  to clinical study "drivers"

Patients in Health 2.0 reality

Members of this group are certainly ready to participate in customer - driven, open source clinical research. Check it out and comment:  www.curetogether.com

If you think open source clinical development is a radical idea...

... you should read a book "Macrowikinomics" by Dan Tapscott.

Before you do,  this link will give you an idea: http://www.macrowikinomics.com/innovation-communities/science-education-and-health/put-patients-in-charge-of-their-health/

The concept of cognitive surplus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu7ZpWecIS8

As you enjoy Clay Shirky's comments think of the application of "cognitive surplus" to health care in general, and specifically to drug development.
Only a very small fraction of the 1 trillion hours / year that are available for contribution is more than collective quantity of hours paid for by all the legacy drug developers. If you buy Clay's point - quality of contribution should be better which has to do with internal motivation vs. salary.

What is open source?

Everyone has web access to product design plan, and is given the opportunity to contribute to it. In case of clinical stages of drug development the "product" is an executable clinical development plan and / or clinical study protocol.
This paradigm has proven very successful in the software industry (most likely you are currently using at least one major software product which was open source designed: Linux, etc), and in many other sectors of the economy. Although a lot of lip service has been given to the concept by the pharma / biotech sector it did not truly move beyond discussion stages.
To find more:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

This blog is about...

...changing the drug development paradigm by open sourcing design and execution of clinical trials.
Transparency Life Sciences, or TLS is the world's first platform allowing for a completely open, Health 2.0 driven drug development. Our website and wiki workspaces will be dedicated to work on specific projects which will be announced very soon. This blog aims to solicit feedback on the idea. We are interested in hearing from those who "get it", but even more important is to know why you think "it will never work".