Drug Discovery or Applied Computational Economics and Financen

Drug Discovery: From Bedside to Wall Street

Author: Tamas Bartfai

Section Headings:
Introduction
Part I. Medicine for Society
Part II. From Basics to Bedside
Part III. The Business of Making & Selling Legal Drugs
Part IV. What Will Matter in Making Medicines?

Doody Review Services

Reviewer: Albert I Wertheimer, BS, MBA, hD(Temple University School of Pharmacy)
Description: The authors suggest that this book opens the door of the pharmaceutical industry for the reader to have a complete view of the drug development process. That is partially true since a great deal of inside information is provided, but nearly all of it already has been published in newspapers, newsmagazines, government reports, and in other media over the last decade. For a reader with no personal experience in the industry, the book offers a view not always seen of the various phases of the drug development process. I detected a certain cynical tone throughout the book.
Purpose: Some people probably see the research-intensive pharmaceutical industry as a gift from the heavens, a group of people who come together to end suffering, pain, and disease, while others see the industry as a gang of robbers who demand too-high prices and who conduct research only in areas where huge markets exist in wealthy countries, ignoring the needs of the developing world. The authors show us that there is a bit of both sides in the industry. Going beyond those issues are superb chapters on how drug products are selected or rejected for marketing. Similarly, there are excellent and informative chapters on clinical trials, biotechnology products, mergers, dealing with the FDA, and pharmacoeconomics, for a few examples. The book is needed because it takes an unorthodox approach to the questions and offers a superb collection of citations from the international literature.
Audience: It is difficult to suggest who the ideal readers are. Graduate students in pharmacy,public health, and health economics are obvious groups that come to mind. The book could possibly be a suitable primer for training new hires in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. It would not suffice if one were to read one book to learn about the structure and functioning of the pharmaceutical industry. However, if one was already knowledgeable about the industry, it makes an excellent source to use in testing one's opinions and impressions about the behavior of the industry. A wide array of readers would find the book readable and understandable, from undergraduate students to policy wonks, legislators, and healthcare practitioners. The authors are accurate in their assessments and would be considered credible authorities. Perhaps the biggest flaw in the book also determines its readership. It does not always present both sides of a story and therefore would be lauded by consumer advocacy groups and probably attacked by leaders of the industry.
Features: Probably, the most valuable features of the book are the explanations in simple terms of complex biotechnology and manufacturing and developmental activities undertaken by the industry. The book goes into detail found in few others. Most books about industry practices assume an understanding of those practices. Here, a relative novice may learn about economic pressures, pricing considerations, and political influences and find an in-depth treatise on the pharmaceutical market. Tables, figures, and boxed explanations are abundant throughout. The index is adequate if one is seeking an explanation of a specific term, process, or policy. It has ample citations and footnotes for those readers who elect to delve into a subject further. The book is almost exclusively focused on the United States, so readers interested in a pharmaceutical development in Europe will have to continue searching for the right sourcebook.
Assessment: I enjoyed this book. It was refreshing reading about these matters from a different perspective. The critical nature of the book, I would imagine, was intentional to play the proverbial "devil's advocate." This book truly caused me to rethink some attitudes and opinions I have had about pharmaceutical company behavior in the marketplace. It's nice that once in a while such a refreshing publication comes along.

Table of Contents:

	Introduction : delivering on the promise
1	The art of putting a molecule into man	3
2	Raising and rising expectations	13
3	History is good to know	23
4	The better beta-blocker barrier	35
5	Why some good drugs do not get a chance and why others fail	49
6	About the economics of target and clinical candidate selection	55
7	Target-based drug discovery : part I	61
8	Changes need to be made	67
9	Target-based drug discovery : part II	79
10	"Drugable" targets	91
11	So many drugs, so few entities	103
12	How to find a candidate drug	111
13	Practicalities : the hoops and hurdles of big pharma	131
14	Practical trials for a balanced portfolio	141
15	How to improve the odds of finding a safe drug that works	145
16	The tribulations of clinical trials	155
17	Linking putative targets to disease states	161
18	More ways to look for targets	171
19	The business basics (general)	183
20	Adding value in a growth industry	193
21	What's the most profitable approach?	209
22	Pharmacoeconomics for biotech	217
23	Shrinking value of targets	227
24	Assessing company assets? : look in the library	231
25	To merge or not to merge?	237
26	Working with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)	243
27	Regulating regulatory regimens reliably	251
28	The hypothesis is : there is a better way	257
29	What are "we" all working on?	267
30	More tablets taken per day than meals served : changing the industrial and legislative status quo	285

Book review: Organizing and Organizations or Silicon Alley

Applied Computational Economics and Financen

Author: Mario J Miranda

This book presents a variety of computational methods used to solve dynamic problems in economics and finance. It emphasizes practical numerical methods rather than mathematical proofs and focuses on techniques that apply directly to economic analyses. The examples are drawn from a wide range of subspecialties of economics and finance, with particular emphasis on problems in agricultural and resource economics, macroeconomics, and finance. The book also provides an extensive Web-site library of computer utilities and demonstration programs.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part develops basic numerical methods, including linear and nonlinear equation methods, complementarity methods, finite-dimensional optimization, numerical integration and differentiation, and function approximation. The second part presents methods for solving dynamic stochastic models in economics and finance, including dynamic programming, rational expectations, and arbitrage pricing models in discrete and continuous time. The book uses MATLAB to illustrate the algorithms and includes a utilities toolbox to help readers develop their own computational economics applications.