Obama's New $1 Billion Drug Center

The Obama administration is getting into the pharmaceutical business in an attempt to make up for the industry’s declining investment in research. The new center, called the National Center for Advancing Translation Sciences, has a $1 billion budget, paltry when compared to the $1 billion estimated cost of bringing a drug to market, though companies typically spend twice as much on marketing as on research. However, rather than develop drugs itself, the agency’s goal is to do enough basic research to show private industry that a drug could be profitable. It’s similar to some of the National Institutes of Health’s duties, except that the new agency will go further, doing testing and even starting human trials. “None of this is intended to be competitive with the private sector,” said the director of the institutes. “The hope would be that any project that reaches the point of commercial appeal would be moved out of the academic support line and into the private sector.”