Crowdsourcing Drug Development

Crowdsourcing has proven highly effective in bringing many minds to bear on a range of problem to be solved, though often for issues as simple as a logo design. That power of course can be brought to bear on problems far more complex. The National Institutes of Health, following the lead of a program begun in Great Britain, will begin on October 1 providing grants to researchers to allow them to attempt to find new uses for drugs abandoned as ineffective for their original intent by companies such as Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca. History has shown that some drugs found ineffective for treating the ailment originally targeted can be highly effective against other conditions. The drug AZT is one such drug, originally designed for cancer but now used against AIDS. NIH is making $20 million available in grants for researching new uses for about 20 drugs initially, but hopes to expand the program. Persons conducting this research will have the benefit of millions of dollars already expended by the major companies to determine, for instance, safe dosage levels. Sounds like a win-win-win to me. The program is being run by NIH's new National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.