I always chuckle to myself when I read the oft-repeated idea that the athletes are ahead of the testers when it comes to science. How cheap and easy do they think it is to do this stuff? Where do I send a grant proposal to get some of that science funding from athletes? Could some of the sub-rosa scientists that interpret the literature for the 'athletes' please include me in their clipping service? I'm tired of getting only the slow, second-rate science that is available to me, I'd like to reach the cutting edge too.
Take a guess at how much money Amgen spent developing EPO. Granted, a LOT of that money goes to clinical trials, but a HUGE amount of money is still required to do the basic R&D. Heck, my little research project alone cost about $100,000 for the last year, and I'm just a post-doc, so not a whole lot of that was salary :-) Cheers, Buck p.s. The standard cost estimate for a drug like Procrit to reach the market these days is about a billion dollars. Really, that's a 'b' at the start of that amount. Friend of mine does pharmacokinetic research for Abbott. His job is one of those in the 'critical path' meaning every extra day he takes on a project is an extra day before the drug hits the market. He recalls the day one of his bosses (VP for research) mentioned that each of those days costs the company roughly $1-2 million. That's because to recoup those R&D dollars, the drug needs to hit gross sales of $500 million to $1 billion a year for the 10 years of patent protection typically left for a specific drug once it reaches the market. Divide by 365 and that's $1.4 - 2.8 million per day. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ed and Dana Parrot" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: ""Athletics"" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 1:18 AM Subject: Re: t-and-f: Olympic DQ's I believe that the East German documents found several years ago indicated, among other things, that their scientists were involved with experimenting on athletes with drugs that we still being "developed" but promised to be effective. I suspect that's not exactly what Dan was referring to, but it is one example to suport his observation. However, aside from that, all I have heard is "speculation", nothing that approaches fact. The most encouraging thing about the DPO positives is that perhaps the testers have gotten just a tiny bit closer to the athletes in the testing race. - Ed Parrot ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Kaplan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'track list'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 9:22 PM Subject: RE: t-and-f: Olympic DQ's > Hmm, putting me on the spot... I was specifically thinking of Charlie > Francis' references to arsenic and stric nine (sp?) being used as > performance enhancers in small volumes, as well as prescription drugs not > yet on the market at the time being popular commodities. I've read > several other accounts over the years, some here on the list, but I cannot > cite any specifics off hand. > > Dan > > --- malmo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > You must have better sources than I do. In all the years I've never > > heard of such nonsense. > > > > Could you provide a bibliography for us slow-lane types, please? > > > > Thank you, > > > > malmo > > > > -----Original Message----- > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Dan Kaplan > > > > From what I've read of performance enhancing drug use, it's not at all > > uncommon for athletes to experiment with truly experimental drugs to > > get that extra edge. So something that was "developed" by '83 was > > probably in R&D by at least '80 and may have been making the rounds that > > far back. > > > > Dan > > > ===== > http://AccountBiller.com - MyCalendar, D-Man, ReSearch, etc. > http://Run-Down.com - 10,000 Running Links, Fantasy T&F > ------------------------------------------------------------ > @ o Dan Kaplan - [EMAIL PROTECTED] > <|\/ <^- ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) > _/ \ \/\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] (lifetime forwarding address) > / / (503)370-9969 phone/fax > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Try FREE Yahoo! Mail - the world's greatest free email! > http://mail.yahoo.com/ >
