There are those calling for heads to roll. The logic for such calls is claimed non performance by those entrusted with making a deal at Imugene. This is not a new call even in Mythology heads have rolled when major technology breakthroughs have been made:
"According to Petronius(c. 27 AD – c. 66 AD) in his work Satyricon, the inventor of flexible glass (vitrum flexile) brought a drinking bowl made of the material before Tiberius Caesar. The bowl was put through a test to break it, but it merely dented, rather than shattering. The inventor repaired the bowl very easily with a small hammer, which he pulled from a pocket in his toga, according to Petronius. After the inventor swore that he was the only man alive who knew the manufacturing technique, Tiberius had the man beheaded. It has been suggested this was either to protect the existing glassmaking industry,[2]to ensure that glass remained breakable as an effective planned obsolescence or because he feared that the glass would devalue gold and silver, since the material might be more valuable.[3]"
In this particular case however it was not the deal maker at the glass factory who was for the chop but the inventor.
Professor Fong is lucky he was not around then because the heads of Big Pharma would likely have ordered he be made the beneficiary of the same fate.
I cannot claim to have ever had the job of making a deal to advance the development and commercialisation of a paradigm shifting technology of any kind but I suspect that the key issues of "incumbency and self interest" are running on steroids when this is the case.
I could expend considerable time listing all the benefits of Imugene's Vaxinia platform but for present purposes it will do three things extremely well if it meets its inventors expectations:
1. It will dramatically lower the cost of treatment;
2. It will reduce the medical care needs of patients;
3. It will make most current treatments redundant.
So based on these three things alone and the key issues that any paradigm shifting technology has to over come being incumbency and self interest can you imagine walking into Big Pharma and laying out the Vaxinia value proposition and having the red carpet rolled out to you.
Tiberius Caesar if he was in charge would have made sure you had not told anyone else about Vaxinia and had you beheaded so as not to devalue his current cancer treatment portfolio.
I personally have no idea if the Imugene sales people are good at their jobs all I have is Lesley Chong's word that they are, and working extremely hard.
What troubles me though is how anyone faced with the task could manage to convince Big Pharma to throw in a couple of hundred million to help Imugene progress Vaxinia and in so doing make themselves redundant.
Vaxinia might still not work and if it does not work then Big Pharma's problem goes away.
If Imugene runs out of money to keep trials going then Big Pharma's problem likely goes away.
One thing I do know is that often the best approach to a problem can be to do nothing and see how it pans out. I have often advised clients to do just that because ones worst fears often never come to pass. By sitting back and keeping communication lines open the need to act may never occur.
Big Pharma we are told recently are watching Imugene. By doing so if the beautiful data appears they can then take action to try and salvage something from the disaster that a successful Imugene will spell for traditional cancer medicine.
If you look at different businesses most find themselves lacking when they have grown to a particular size and then the market changes and they are over capitalised in other words too big for the new market. Very few businesses can successfully grow smaller in a commercially viable fashion. Most collapse because the vested interests cannot accept what needs to be done and they end up in liquidation. The bigger they are the harder they fall.
If Imugene's Vaxinia lowered the cost of cancer treatment by just 50 percent how many of the current players could overnight survive such a revenue shift???
My opinion only DYOR
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