2021 – InFLAMES Flagship Blog

A Year Aboard the InFLAMES Flagship

The Academy of Finland Research Flagships each sail at the seas of their own area of expertise. Each one tries to steer clear of destructive reefs but is still sure to face calm, strong winds and even storms on their voyage. InFLAMES Flagship has now sailed the seas of immunology, immunology-based drug development and/or diagnostics for almost a year, recruiting 42 new crew members along the way. That alone is proof enough that as soon as the ropes were released from the pier, the search for stronger winds and ever faster movement towards the goal began. The end goal, developing new treatments alongside more accurate and earlier stage diagnosis methods, is what we hope to reach together with our Flagship and accompanying fleet. I believe the journey is going to be an unforgettable one.

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Of scales and trends

Professors of Practice Timo Veromaa

I’m a fan of macro figures, so the ignorance of others about the right scale of things is sometimes frustrating. For example, for some it is difficult to separate one million from one billion. On the other hand, the Americans do not make life easy by using the term billion for our milliard, and trillion for our billion. However, focusing on the linguistic nuances of numbers is not the real point here; my interest in macro figures is.

Which is why the 98-page The Pharma 1000 – Top Global Pharmaceutical Company Report by Torreya Partners, published in November 2021, was interesting to read. Torreya Partners is a global investment bank focused on the pharmaceutical industry. I still receive their reports, thanks to our previous collaborations. Nice – our collaboration, as fruitful as it was, was far from being just some cheap fun.

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Applying Pharmacoeconomics for Drinking Water

Juha Laine Professors of Practice

Economic thinking and the methods used in economics can be utilised in various situations. To quote a certain Professor of Economics, “The creative imagination of economists can be expected to find solutions to all measurement problems”. For example, “What is the value of life?” is a question for which an educated economist will offer a solution while waiting for their coffee to brew.

There are many research paradigms and areas of application in economics. There is environmental economics, urban economics, business economics, and labour economics, to mention a few. Not surprisingly, there is also health economics and pharmaceutical economics.

In health economics, the organisation and production of health services and incentives, as well as other issues that are essential for social reform, are studied. In pharmaceutical economics, areas of interest include the cost-effectiveness of pharmaceutical treatments, health-related quality of life, and the operation of the pharmaceutical market.

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Freshly minted PhD – what’s next?

Professors of Practice Timo Veromaa

A boat is out on the bay in front of our summer home. Three young men are standing – fishing. It’s an early autumn morning, but these fishermen seem to be out of luck. The boat is drifting slowly towards the open sea, perhaps towards better fishing waters. The fishermen seem determined, resolutely continuing and heading towards the horizon. Or, at least, the skipper of the boat is very active.

Could this be about committing to a goal? Perhaps the fishermen are pursuing their common passion – or at least the skipper’s passion.

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The value of a drug is measured along the way

Juha Laine Professors of Practice

How would you concretely measure the value of your work in the short and long term? During my lecture, I asked such a question from the students studying drug development at the University of Turku. The question was quite difficult. I received only one answer. Well, as anyone who teaches knows, even simple questions may get only one answer.

According to the brave respondent, the value of the work done in drug development could be measured by the number of patients treated with that drug in the future. It was easy to offer a countering question: Is the development of orphan drugs then not valuable in this sense? There is considerable uncertainty about the future number of patients in the initial stages of a drug development project.

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Immunology is on the rise in pharmaceutical trends

Professors of Practice Timo Veromaa

In 2014, the government led by Juha Sipilä presented the growth strategy for the Finnish healthcare sector. This was a recognition of a sector that has invested significantly in health research and has risen to the absolute top of health research in many sectors globally. Finland offers a tremendous functioning ecosystem for medical research.

Now, in 2021, we already have a third government that has continued to commit to this strategy, at the very least. However, the recent uproar over funding cuts in science did not increase confidence in the current government’s desire to improve public funding for biomedical research in Finland. The key pillars of the growth strategy include the National Cancer Centre, the Genome Center and the Finnish Biobank Cooperative FINBB. They are still waiting for the necessary government start-up grants. Despite the lack of promised government aid, projects have progressed, although no decision has yet been taken, for example, on the funding of a national drug development centre.

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Wins and losses – Does a failed drug development project matter?

Juha Laine Professors of Practice

Developing a drug from an idea to a finished product is a long journey. It takes easily more than ten years and can cost hundreds of millions of euros. However, the end result may be a drug that relieves symptoms or heals the patient. Sometimes we manage to also prevent diseases.

And for this reason, the failure of a drug development project affects many. Researchers who have done basic and applied research are disappointed, start-ups are facing financial difficulties, stock prices of large pharmaceutical companies are falling, doctors are not getting new tools, and patients who want the medicine are disappointed. Members of my own profession will be left without work, sitting by their Excel sheets. There is no need for cost-benefit calculations by health economists.

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