Open Source Pharma
From the Open-Source Pharma Foundation.
Open-Source Pharma is a nonprofit working to build a crowdsourced, open-IP alternative to traditional drug discovery. They asked me to make some line edits to their core narrative. I wound up rewriting the entire thing.
Open-Source Pharma
Written by Open-Source Pharma Foundation
The Problem: Massive Health Needs Left Unaddressed
The pharmaceutical industry has failed to deliver in countries both rich and poor — for neglected disease, for antibiotics, and for affordable cures generally. According to the World Health Organization, only 10% of global health R&D is devoted to diseases of the global poor. New drug prices in developing countries can exceed $80,000 annually. It takes $2.5 billion and 10 - 15 years to develop a new drug. Productivity in the pharmaceutical industry has been declining exponentially. The needs of billions are left unmet by an industry ripe for upending.
A radical, alternative, open-source pharmaceutical system dedicated to breakthroughs in affordable medicine is possible. It would leverage exponential advances in computing power and collaborative technologies; alternative approaches to intellectual property; and the vast reach of the generics industry.
The Approach: Linux for Drugs
We seek to develop a new paradigm for drug discovery. Open-source software such as Linux and Android are crowdsourced, patent-free, affordable, and market-dominant. In brief, open-source pharma is 1) crowdsourced and computer-driven drug discovery, and 2) IT-enabled clinical trials with open data and crowdsourcing. The Open-Source Pharma Foundation has commenced a multicentric phase 2B clinical trial for tuberculosis in 2018, nearly 10 years faster and at 1/100th the cost of a classic big pharma model.
Edited by Jay Dixit
95% of diseases have no known cure.
Across the globe, more than 1 billion people are afflicted with “neglected diseases” — devastating chronic illnesses for which there is no known treatment.
The worst part is there’s no end in sight. In the current model, the world depends on big pharmaceutical companies to discover and develop new medicines.
But developing a new drug takes 10 to 15 years — and costs a whopping 2.5 billion dollars. And since neglected tropical diseases affect the world’s poorest people, big pharma companies have no incentive to invest in them.
Billions of people are suffering as a result — ensnared in a vicious cycle of chronic disease that makes it impossible to escape poverty.
A new model is desperately needed.
A revolutionary approach to drug discovery
We’re pioneering a new approach to drug development — one that’s crowdsourced, data-centric, and scalable. An approach that leverages the principles of open-source software — open IP, transparent information sharing, and peer collaboration. Powered by advanced computer modeling and artificial intelligence, we develop treatments that are crowdsourced, patent-free, and affordable for the people who need them most.
The result is a radical process that’s 100 times cheaper than traditional drug discovery.
We call it Open-Source Pharma.
The original is vague, abstract, and impossible to visualize ("oh no, hey everyone, did you know that needs are being unaddressed, this is awful!"). The rewrite is concrete, vivid, and impossible to ignore: 95% of diseases have no known cure.
For the principles behind this kind of editorial transformation — and another before-and-after demonstration in financial analysis — see How I Make Technical Content Meaningful.