The precompetitive knowledge commons

1. The precompetitive knowledge commons • Human Genome Project • It is an international 15-year effort • Formally begun in October 1990 and completed in 2003 • To discover all the estimated 20,000-25,000 human genes and make them accessible for further biological study.

2. The precompetitive knowledge commons • Due to massive distributed collaboration across institution , countries and disciplines scientist completed the Human Genome Project within 15 years • pharmaceutical firms collaborated abandoning their own proprietary projects, this was a watershed moment in Human Genome Project. • Due to this they were able to cut cost, accelerate innovation , create more wealth for share holders and ultimately help society to achieve benefits of Genomic research more quickly.

3. Big pharma fights back • In 1995 Merck pharmaceuticals and gene sequencing center created Meck gene index, a public database of gene sequences. • Merck released 15,000 human gene sequences into the public domain. • 1998 Merck and Washington university had published over 800,000 gene sequences.

4. Big pharma fights back • Dr. Alan Williamson former wise president of research strategy with Merck says that ”Merck’s approach is the most efficient way to encourage progress in genomic research and its commercial application. By giving all research workers unrestricted access to the resources of the Merck gene index, the probability of discovery will increase. The basic knowledge we and others gain will lead ultimately to new therapeutics for a wide range of disease, while providing opportunities for investment in future gene-based product development”

5. Big pharma fights back • In 1999, SNP Consortium was established as a collaboration of 11 pharmaceutical companies, a nonprofit institution, and 2 IT firms. • Their goal was to hasten a new era of “personalized medicine” in which treatment is tailored to an individual’s unique genetic profile. • At the completion of the project in 2001, 1.8 million SNPs are mapped. • Scientists are currently using the mapped SNPs to cure common but hard to treat diseases.

6. Value of collaborative discovery • To produce valuable end product to market • To avoid antitrust problem • Speeding the industry towards personalize medicine • Less time to create new medicine • Low production cost

7. Open source drug discovery • In 2003, FDA approved 21 NMEs, of which only 9 were designated as “significant improvements” over existing drugs • Between 1995 and 2002 US based pharmaceutical companies double their R&D expenditure, to about 32 billion.

8. Open source drug discovery • There are many concerns to address • The productivity of large pharmaceutical innovation has decreased • Lack the ability to properly predict the side effects of new compounds. • Lack of good ways to monitor and assess the new medicine once they are in the market • Pricing model have become untenable

9. The open source opportunity in the drug discovery Differences when comparing with software development • Software production is easy to break up into bit size pieces but drug development is harder to parse out and require access to expensive laboratory instruments • Software projects can be completed in months but drug discovery will take 10-15yrs • Making software invention commercially viable is easy and inexpensive but biological inventions take years of clinical trials and healthy dose of know-how to reach that point

10. The open source opportunity in the life science • Similarities when comparing with software development • Both communities share similar goals • Driven by similar motivation • They share strong community ethics such as reciprocal sharing and collaborate discovery • People who contribute to both collaborative projects are either paid to do so directly or do so in their spare times