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To: Neal davidson who wrote (84030)	6/21/1999 12:09:00 AM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 186894

You don't have a clue about medical research you repugnant capitalist ...better hope you don't develop pancreatic,esophageal or metastatic colon cancer cause medical science has NO cures!Many of the medical advancements today could have been achieved 20 years ago if the funding was there...unfortunately our priorities were misdirected.

To: Neal davidson who wrote (84030)	6/22/1999 3:33:00 AM
From: nihil	Respond to of 186894

Read Atlas Shrugged and you will fall suddenly into a deep, troubled sleep.

To: Neal davidson who wrote (84030)	6/24/1999 4:23:00 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

RE: "Medical research is great. ...Read Atlas Shrugged, you will learn some very important lessons on hard work and the economy." Neal, It may not be obvious, but the capitalistic structure is cracking in the medical development/biotech area. Unlike the 80's, today's biotech is inhibited by: - why would a VC invest in biotech, when they can invest in an Internet startup? - VC funds are being swept into Internet startups (I don't recall the stats off the top of my head, but it could be summarized as: the Internet sucking machine is sucking up biotech investments) - it takes only $5M - $20M to launch a computer startup - it takes more than $20M to launch a biotech startup (I think I recall a biotech VC saying something like $50M and he said this is about 10X what it takes to start a computer company) - there tends to be better ROI with computer startups, than biotech startups - risk is higher with biotech startup (What if the product doesn't work??? Can't just "fix the code." Go back to the lab and invest years redoing work.) - medical product development has a lot longer lifecycle - it takes more than 9 months to develop a medical product - it's not very easy to "test" the biotech product - # of recent entrepreneurs in computers vs. biotech might be 100:1 ? - # of recent biotech innovations is less than # of computer innovations - there are more VCs backing computer startups than biotech startups - Many VCs tend to prefer to fund computer companies rather than biotech firms The capitalistic model does appear to have some cracks in the biotech area. Which is why more private funds (e.g. Gates, Packards) are being channeled into this area, otherwise, the country might start to experience the results of this investment gap. Amy J