Biotech treatments have already started relieving the symptoms of the disease. While the number of products being cleared bythe FDA is growing geometrically, biotech is still a small and untamed industry. Co. So industry stock prices are sometimes buffeted by the fortunes of a couple of big biotech companies. The two groups need each other. Biotech companies need the funding, marketing and distribution power of the big firms.
Big pharma needs the new, revolutionary products that come from biotech's entrepreneurial culture.
Where exactly the research will lead and what diseases may be treated is usually unknown. You know you have a cord to pull, but you're not always sure a parachute is going to appear. Some analysts estimate that only one in ten of the publicly traded biotech firms will survive. The same odds apply to the number of drugs that will eventually win FDA approval. Ligand's senior director, Jonathan Rosen, tells of a test-tube discovery last year of a molecule that could stimulate production of white blood cells in mice.