»corporate research«

Pascal Zachary reports in the NY Times (30.9.2007) on how Apple, Intel, Google and others kept a leading edge in their market. It's not all about their products but how they develop them: their success "has as much or more to do with their process innovations as the products that inspire loyalty among fans and admiration from foes," writes Zachary.

The Economist (1.3.2007) investigates in a grant piece the changing role of research and development (R&D) in today's IT industry. What was formerly R&D is now (in the IT sector) blurred together and much more market driven, say R&D changed to 'rD', with a big emphasis on the D. The article gives a great view of U.S. corporate R&D management, as for the Economist journalists talked to many key figures at Google, IBM, HP, Xerox PARC, Microsoft, Cisco, Yahoo.

The Economist: "The Google method means researchers are part of development, says Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt. The company employs very small teams to work on a small number of ideas, some of which may turn into big hits. Failure is an essential part of the process. 'The way you say this is: Please fail very quickly—so that you can try again,' says Mr Schmidt."

Also the conclusion by John Seely Brown, a former director of Xerox PARC is remarkable: "When I started out running PARC, I thought 99 percent of the work was creating the innovation, and then throwing it over the transom for dumb marketers to figure out how to market it. Now I realise that there is at least as much creativity in finding ways to take the idea to market as coming up with the idea in the first place. I would have spent my time differently had I figured this out early on," quotes the Economist.

Erika Check reports in Nature online (15.1.2007) about the role of statisticians in medical papers. Often they are not named as co-authors for the publications. But the play a key role as they check and prepare the data to make conclusions, especially when they are affiliated with the funding company as it is generally the case. Even more, most companies are very reluctant to give researchers the rare data.

Sascha Karberg reports in Financial Times Deutschland (4.7.2006) about a cooperation of the British Wellcome Trust and company Novartis to develop drugs against malaria. The project is remakable because generally the big pharma companies don't engage in disease of the poor -- most people affected with malaria live in the developing countries and have no money for the drugs. But Novartis realized that its researchers feel bound to the demands of society (not only making money and boosting shareholder value) and seek for societal relevant research. Hence, to make Novartis attractive for the best scientists it engages with the Wellcome Trust in malaria research. The Trust already pumped hugh amounts of money into malaria research with high quality output but poor realization in drugs. Hence, Novartis shall take the development and business part.

"Our commitment is to maintain the highest standards of research integrity, sound science and open communication during the research process," is a statement in a recently published "Bill of Rights" by pharma giant Procter&Gamble. As Phil Baty notes in the THES (24.2.2006) the company was urged to this steps after some irregularities in recent publication processes. In one case academic researchers performed a study for the company but had not full access to the studies data for analysis.
The bill of rights also states that "research authors will define and control the content and direction of any publications resulting from their work" and will have "final authority" over all publication content, writes Baty. Company-sponsored "ghostwriters" will provide help with writing papers "only if requested".

Yes, there's been a Woodstock of Physics, as Christian Speicher describes in NZZ (5.4.2006) the 1987 spring meeting of the American Physical Society where – in a special session – the discoverer of high-temperature superconductivity presented there finding of 1986. The session attracted several thousands of scientists and – after 51 contributions – ended the next day in the early morning. Christian Speicher now celebrates the 20th anniversary of the key paper's submission (sic!) by Georg Bednorz and Alex Müller on 17.4.1986. The duo recorded superconductivity in particular oxides at 35 Kelvin. Because a difficult magnetic test for confirmation was not feasible due to a lack of equipment they submitted the ground breaking paper not with Science or Nature but the "Zeitschrift für Physik". It took some time until the breakthrough was realized and repeated by others. The temperature of phase transition to superconductivity was rapidly increased by other researchers to 91 Kelvin – a second breakthrough which draws huge scientific and media attention. As soon as three years later, Science inquires "Is the party over?" because -- obviously -- scientists have been dreaming of electricity grid without resistance, at ambient temperatures, but overlooked the hard obstacles to overcome. Until know there's still no sound theory on the workings of high-temperature superconductivity.

Drug companies lose hundreds of millions of dollars when large-scale human clinical trials fail. Helen Pearson examines for Nature (30.11.2006) whether alternative procedures could help avoid such disappointments. She describes the case where a promising stroke drug of pharma firm AstraZeneca failed a phase III clinical trial.
On average, "the failed phase III trial shouldn't have come as too much of a surprise. More than 40 percent of drugs that enter phase III trials - the final and most extensive stage of clinical testing - are abandoned because they prove ineffective or unsafe," writes Pearson. Phase III trials are the costliest part of drug development. They involve lots of patients; in this case with two phase III trials 4900 people.

Claudia Deutsch writes in the NY Times (28.2.2006) how the chemical industry looks for alternatives of crude oil as a basis for their products. They look for processes using biomass like wood, straw or crops as a feedstock for producing principle chemical compounds. Actually, it's a challenging vision because the chemical industry has optimized processes in refineries for many decades. Substituting these processes today is not economical, and some companies even don't put research money into a field that may have no alternative in the coming decades.

Helen Pearson reports at Nature online (17.3.2006) about the tragic drug trial at a London hospital when all six trial participants showed severe side effects and were treated then at intensive care units. The compound TGN1412 is developed "with the aim of directing the immune system to fight cancer cells, or calm joints inflamed by rheumatoid arthritis," writes Pearson. It's also a showcase of international distributed research and development. The developer is the Germany biotech company TeGenero, producer of the compound is the German pharma firm Boehringer Ingelheim, contractor for the clinical trials is a U.S. service company conducting them in London. Up to now, nobody knows why the six men's immune system reacted that heavy, but "scientists note that the trial illustrates how incredibly potent some immune-altering agents can be. 'The immune system is capable of extraordinary power and we must be very careful when we tinker with it,'" a scientist is quoted.

After years of discussion and argument, the European Union adopted a new chemical legislation, called REACH which stands for Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals. The European Parliament approved it today. "Its effects will not be seen for a while. Companies will only have to register chemicals they make, import or use after the European Chemicals Central Agency starts up in Helsinki, Finland, in 2008. At first they will register only chemicals they make in quantities over 1000 tonnes a year, with quantities over a tonne by 2019," writes New Scientist (13.12.2006). The legislation is - in principle - a paradigm shift: Now companies have to prove that their chemical products are safe. Until now, governmental authorities had to investigate whether chemicals are hazardous.