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Joan Hunt attested that NIH and the NIAID welcome proposals from the middle of the country in the competition for funding. Joe Waeckerle added that there were "a whole bunch of oppor- tunities to go after money with the right approach." The deepest need, as Waeckerle sees it, is the need for "someone to foster co-operation and integration." Collaboration Waeckerle was not alone in his call for cooperation or even active collaboration. It was an underlying theme of the session. Rob Johnson of ScriptPro suggested, in fact, that "we need to have more collaborations like this one," namely the Ingram’s Industry Outlook session. Jim Guikema generally agreed: "We need to foster and strengthen partnerships between publics and privates, basics and applied." So did Karel Schubert, "There is definitely a need to facilitate communications and networking." Steve Lufkin of MRI made per-haps the most provocative case for a specific collaborative structure in regards to the pharmaceutical process. Having worked in "Big Pharma" himself, Lufkin preferred, when outsourcing projects, to deal with a single supplier or, as he colorfully phrased it, "one butt to chew if something doesn’t go right." He wondered if Kansas City could somehow find the synergy to make "a comprehensive offering to the pharmaceutical industry for drug development." This process offers "much opportunity to collaborate" from discovery to pre-clinical testing to clinical testing, especially given the possibility of developing designer drugs for narrower markets.
"We have to grab it," said Berger. Jim Spigarelli asked whether Big Pharma would be more inclined to contract with such an entity if it could offer everything in the drug discovery process from "A to Z." As he noted, "Collaboration takes a lot of effort" and asked, "Is there a payback?" "You do have a lot of capability scattered around," offered Bill Duncan. He cited those at the table like Art Berger’s B&B Clinical Innovations and Rob Johnson’s ScriptPro, a management system for drug distribution, which has gone from someone’s basement to a staff of 450 in less than ten years. "Thanks for the plug," said Johnson who preferred to sit back and let Duncan sing the company’s praises. In addition, Duncan pointed to the many universities with drug discovery programs, some of them "world class." KCALSI, however, has yet to attack this idea or to articulate it to the industry at large. "Focus is the thing," said Duncan. Without it, there is no point proceeding. Matt Dority of the Missouri Department of Economic Devel-opment asked Duncan if any collaborative arrangements had been established with Mexico in this regard. Duncan answered that discussions were ongoing but "nothing specific" had been agreed on. Sandra Willsie was less bullish on the idea. She suggested that pharmaceutical companies have networks with which they are used to working. To try to re- route those dollars might not, in her opinion, provide "a big bang for the buck." Tom Krol of Cydex, which aspires to be a specialty pharmaceutical company, expressed reservations as well. He observed that folks in research have their own budgets and their own tasks to complete. Folks in development have theirs as do those in marketing. ‘They are somewhat autonomous," said Krol of these departments. "Each group can go do its own bit."
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Ron Trewyn of KSU was in full agreement. He commented that many of the bio-terrorist threats, including anthrax, involve a transfer of disease from animals to people. He saw the wisdom of bringing the agricultural and veterinary schools into the equation and tying them into the medical schools and public health organizations. "Threats," in this case literal ones, "become opportunities."
Art Berger of B&B Clinical Innovations outlined just how much money was available in the out-sourcing market. As he related, the pharmaceutical industry spends $70-80 billion on research and development and the government spends another $18 billion, and 56% of that is outsourced.