There are approximately 200 million people worldwide who suffer from the often whispered about disorder known as urinary incontinence (UI)—the loss of bladder control. Not only can this be a very embarrassing problem, but it can also greatly affect quality of life. While diapers, pads, exercises and medications all exist to help with this disorder, sometimes the best help can be a greater understanding of when occurrences are the most likely. Now there is an app for that.
iDry, developed by Jeff Pepper, founder of Three Ten LLC (with assistance from the National Institute on Aging and the department of urology at a major university), can help people overcome UI by logging events, tracking progress, predicting future success, identifying factors that affect UI and sharing progress with their doctor. This free app, available for Apple devices, can also help users track how UI is affect by various interventions such as exercises, behaviors, diets, drugs, devices and medical procedures.
“iDry gives you an incredibly easy and discreet way to log your UI events when they occur,” says Pepper. “Then, iDry uses your log data and its built-in database of hundreds of pad and diaper brands to show you in detail the progress you are making in overcoming your UI, including the date when, if trends continue, you will be completely dry.”
DISCOVERIES/INNOVATIONS
Crowdsourcing Drug Funding
Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com) has proven to be successful at helping people raise money to get their creative projects off the ground—with some even raising millions of dollars. If this can work for creative ideas, then why not pharma? CureLauncher is a new company that hopes to find out.
At CureLauncher.com, people can connect with medical innovators and donate money toward clinical trials. The current featured project is a metastatic breast cancer treatment from NIH cancer researcher Dr. Lee Roy Morgan, CEO of DEKK-TEC, Inc., who hopes to raise $10,000 through the site. At press time the project had raised $1,115 through 14 different funders. People are also promised different incentives based on their donation. For example, at least $25 gets you the opportunity to ask the researcher one question about the project while $500 results in a personal thank you phone call from the researcher.
The site is not just for funding projects; it also lists clinical trials that are still looking for participants. Considering that 80% of the 50,000 clinical trials that take place annually in the U.S. are delayed due to low enrollment, this is just another way the site helps get innovation rolling.
SALES SECTOR
Eli Lilly Faces Steepest Cliff
Every pharma company faces huge sales declines due to patent expiration, but according to Fitch Ratings no company faces a steeper patent cliff than Eli Lilly. Over the next three years, approximately 35% of the company’s sales (for the latest 12 months ending June 30, 2012) are subject to patent expiration. According to Fitch, the loss of exclusivity for Cymbalta and Humalog in 2013 could result in sales decreasing at a compound rate of nearly 8% between 2012 and 2014, and that is including the potential addition of the company’s late-stage R&D products to the commercial market. The news only gets worse for Lilly, as the company faces another steep decline in 2017 with the losses of Alimta, Strattera and Cialis.
In order to overcome the first patent cliff, the company is putting an emphasis on its research program. At the end of the second quarter of 2012, the company has 12 projects in Phase III or registered to drug agencies. However, even if all 12 reach commercialization, Fitch still believes that the company would not meaningfully benefit until the ease of the patent crash by 2015.
Over the next three years, approximately35% of Eli Lilly’s sales are subject to patent expiration. The loss of exclusivity for Cymbalta and Humalog in 2013 could result in sales decreasing at a compound rate of nearly 8% between 2012 and 2014.
Three Ten LLC
