We all read Simon. Here he explains...

[MBAnderson]

... why all trials for Parkinson’s have failed – essentially, because we are all different biologically. However, during many of these trials there are some individuals in the cohort for whom the drug works very well. They are considered outliers and (statistically) discarded. Read the article.

What emerges, though, is that there probably are effective treatments, possibly even cures, for some people which were never pursued. Add to this the possibility that there may be many subsets of Parkinson’s and then if you add to that the possibility that there may be many different triggers and combination of triggers, the likelihood of one drug solving all those problems for all those different people looks pretty small.

scienceofparkinsons.com/

"And while this may at first appear to be a useful approach for the pharmaceutical industry in their efforts to identify blockbuster drugs, in truth billions of dollars of investor money are being wasted on ‘failed’ trials where there were not enough positive responders in the treatment group. It is wasteful approach that does not serve the affected community nor society as a whole. And critically, it is reducing our chances of overall success by limiting the number of potentially useful drugs."

"There is the very real possibility that effective drugs (for certain individuals) are being lost or missed out on because our current system is flawed."

[park_bear]

Sorry but he is ignorant of how pharma testing actually works. He is talking about big expensive pivotal phase 3 trials with control groups. If one of these fails, there is an intensive search for any subgroup in which the drug may be working to try to salvage something out of the investment. IF there is any such subgroup to be found they will do their utmost to find it. If such a subgroup is identified this then needs to be confirmed with a subsequent trial. Big pharma is guilty of a lot of things, but not of letting testing investments go to waste.

[Juliegrace]

Thank you for posting this. I don't read SoP as often as I would like.

[aspergerian]

Imo, one of Simon's most important essays.

[aspergerian in reply to aspergerian]

Google:

overlooking subgroups in medical research.

And similar searches.