Mabe She Just Isn't Into You

[rory_20_uk]

And yet so many products fail in Phase 3. Clearly companies like wasting billions to ensure that no one guesses they are so in control of the statistical analysis. Billions in alzheimer's alone. Some companies even go as far as to fold to ensure that this ruse is kept going...

Most people do not know any better - but then those that work on both sides of the fence do.

[HopAlongBunny]

With the "gaming" of the system and the enormous reach of Big Pharma, I guess we should be happy that some drugs actually fail.
Perhaps we could be comforted by an industry study showing how fair the process is.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...any-influence/

[Papewaio]

“We need to highlight that these meta-analyses are more a marketing tool than a science,” - Ouch

I know in IT most companies want all their support staff to be sales people too. Seems Big Pharma wants all their scientists to be marketing pros as well.

[rory_20_uk]

Wow! The makers of the drug do most of the studies - that's really big news!!!

Conflict of interest - which means having received any funding, or given advice - was present in 80% of the people!! Wow!! Companies ask experts for help and experts ask for money for their time!!!

Meta-analysis uses the same data - wow!!

I have to love the jump that when stats is done by people in industry it must be poor research compared. In fact the drivel that many universities churn out is often far worse and just as open to bias - MMR scare, anyone?

I am sure that the Cochrane group would be very upset regarding meta-analysis utility.

Others can do research on any topic they like.

Finally, as the article finally says, those that publish the material are paid extremely well to do so partly because the time they are supposed to spent in getting the material peer-reviewed. If they can't even check that conflicts of interest have been missed this is pretty dire.

[rory_20_uk]

...

[Montmorency]

In fact the drivel that many universities churn out is often far worse and just as open to bias

I disagree that it is worse, but otherwise this is just what I was pointing out with respect to shoddy statistics.

The vast majority of pharmacological medications are simply not at all fit for the market or for general use. This would not change even if all development was conducted under public or governmental organizations. Since there is a poor understanding of what constitutes rigorous design or statistical validation, there is a general trend for even approved medications to be less effective and/or riskier than was initially thought. This isn't even an issue of hindsight, as applying the appropriate techniques to old studies and reports often demonstrates that, hey, we should have realized this from the beginning and factored it into the cost-benefit analyses.

This is all without taking obfuscation, cheating, or fraud into account.

[rory_20_uk]

I disagree that it is worse, but otherwise this is just what I was pointing out with respect to shoddy statistics.

The vast majority of pharmacological medications are simply not at all fit for the market or for general use. This would not change even if all development was conducted under public or governmental organizations. Since there is a poor understanding of what constitutes rigorous design or statistical validation, there is a general trend for even approved medications to be less effective and/or riskier than was initially thought. This isn't even an issue of hindsight, as applying the appropriate techniques to old studies and reports often demonstrates that, hey, we should have realized this from the beginning and factored it into the cost-benefit analyses.

This is all without taking obfuscation, cheating, or fraud into account.

[Montmorency]

I would crack a joke about studying internal medicine, but that's the very thing - the only people who seem to care about these problems are mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, and theoretically-oriented individuals in all other fields.

I like null-hypotheses, and I don't like Bayesianism, but "significance-testing" is just useless.

[Beskar]

And yet so many products fail in Phase 3. Clearly companies like wasting billions to ensure that no one guesses they are so in control of the statistical analysis. Billions in alzheimer's alone. Some companies even go as far as to fold to ensure that this ruse is kept going...

Most people do not know any better - but then those that work on both sides of the fence do.

You won't believe what happened today in my life which makes this very relevant.

My main issue is examples such as this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...tion-5500.html
Really gives big pharma a bad name.

[Papewaio]

I wish they could strip the name Turing from this company as it is an insult to his memory.

Definitely cannot confuse it with a human. Irony that the drug in question treats an oppourtunist parasite, sounds like the company in question too. Is this an actual operating entity or is it a pharmaceutic patent troll. At some point it moves from profit to pay for research to profiteering out of people's lives. Highway robber mentality should mean that the directors are seen as unfit and the patents stripped and given to society. At some point corporations either act as good citizens or are dissolved for the greater good.

Corporations doing things like what is in that article should be treated as criminals. Want benefits of personhood as a corporation then expect the responsibilities of one.

[Montmorency]

Not really. It's just a PR move by a failing enterprise.

http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2015/...euticals-immy/