Darwin Grove And Biotechs Future

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Delving into reasons for the gap between research and product development is the sort of topic this column will address, along with analysis and ideas posited by the likes of Andy Grove and others in and out of the life sciences.

In a proto-column for Portfolio.com I wrote about the first-ever pill in human clinical testing that is designed to extend lifespan. Sirtris Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, Massachusetts, created this "fountain of youth" drug. It has a chemical structure similar to resveratrol, a natural substance found in red wine, and has slowed aging in mice by up to 27 percent.

In another precursor column I described a team at New York University led by neuroscientist Elizabeth Phelps that used fMRI brain scans to discover that humans are relentlessly optimistic about the future.

Phelps scanned regions of the brain that view upcoming events as either rosy or bleak, and discovered that our brains love thinking about the former, and suppress thoughts about the latter. This suggests how our frail, hairless species with small teeth and no claws came to dominate the planet—and why we sometimes willfully ignore inconvenient realities, ranging from stock downturns to global warming.

I wrote about a new F.D.A. report that describes an agency in disarray and so underfunded that it cannot keep up with its mandate to regulate $1 trillion in consumer goods.

A blue-ribbon panel of experts preparing the report also found that the agency was failing to stay up to date with advances in genetics, bioinformatics and other rapidly expanding discoveries and technologies. That deficiency, they say, is slowing approval of drugs and medical devices. They offer reform ideas and suggest a substantial increase in funding.

These are examples of stories I plan to write that cover the realm that Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen has dubbed "disruptive technologies"—those that cause profound change in specific industries and in society. I will take this one step further to investigate what comes next in business, politics, law, and for individuals.

For instance, what will happen if Sirtris succeeds with its longevity pill that slows aging and the diseases of aging? And what will we learn about our fundamental nature as we peer into our brains to learn about our behavior, personality, and predilections? Finally, do politicians and pharmaceutical companies have the courage to embrace new ways to fund and truly reform the F.D.A.?

Andy Grove may be oversimplifying the challenges of understanding and applying the intricacies and implications of molecular biology, which make the most advanced microchips seem simple. Yet he is expounding on a simple evolutionary truth first proposed almost 150 years ago by Charles Darwin: "Survival will be neither to the strongest of the species, nor to the most intelligent, but to those most adaptable to change."

This is the essential question posed by this column: Can we adapt to the rapid-fire changes that we ourselves are promulgating? Can we be as clever in our responses to profound new technologies as we have been in creating the technologies themselves?

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