Tag Archives: complex systems

The potential for “Found Research” in fecal transplant treatments

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All opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Novo Nordisk.

A few days ago the New York Times ran a nice article discussing a recent test of whether fecal transplants can be done using a pill format delivery system. The research, reported (and free, no less!) in the Journal of the American Medical Association, was peformed by physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital who had formulated human feces in an encapsulated pill format to see if that would be effective as a kind of fecal transplant. Fecal transplants  appear to overcome infections by Clostridium difficile in patients. However, the conventional method for providing a fecal transplant is to deliver a liquid slurry either nasopharyngeally or via an enema-like procedure, neither of which is easily scalable. Also, yuck.

The current work, in which 14 of 20 patients responded to initial treatments using the poop pills, and an additional 4 responded the second time around, provided a proof of concept that a frozen, pill format delivery system may be a workable alternative to the current standard.

But as I was reading this article, I was struck by another thought. Are we missing a great opportunity for research into the interplay between the microbiome and human physiology?

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The innovators dilemma in biopharma part 3. What would disruption look like?

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All opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Novo Nordisk.

h/t to @Frank_S_David, @scientre, and the LinkedIn Group Big Ideas in Pharma Innovation and R&D Productivity for links and ideas

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.

In the previous parts to this series I’ve covered both why the biopharma industry is ripe for disruption, and what the markets might be that could support a nascent, potentially disruptive technology until it matures enough to allow it to supplant the current dominant industry players.  In this final part I’d like to ask what disruption would look like and provide some examples of directions and companies that exemplify what are, to my mind, these sorts of disruptive technologies and approaches. With, I might add, the complete and utter knowledge that I’m wrong about who and what specifically will be disruptive! But in any case, before we can identify disruption, it’s worthwhile to ask what are the key elements of biopharma drug development that serve as real bottlenecks to affecting  human health, since these are the elements most likely to provide an avenue for disruption. Continue reading →