Self-Centric and Altruistic Unmet Needs for Ebola: Barriers to International Preparedness.

Objective: Barriers to international Ebola preparedness may be elucidated by identifying heterogeneities in arguments to invest in countermeasures during "peace time."

Methods: For each patent family (related patent documents that differed only by limited alterations to the same invention) concerning Ebola and published until the end of 2014 the oldest patent document was analyzed. Grounded theory coding identified 5 unmet needs for (1) vaccines and therapies, (2) control of outbreaks in endemic areas, (3) detection and control of outbreaks in nonendemic areas, (4) better understanding of filoviruses, and (5) protection against bioterrorism.

Market implementation of the MVA platform for pre-pandemic and pandemic influenza vaccines: A quantitative key opinion leader analysis.

A quantitative method is presented to rank strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) as a platform for pre-pandemic and pandemic influenza vaccines. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was applied to achieve pairwise comparisons among SWOT factors in order to prioritize them. Key opinion leaders (KOLs) in the influenza vaccine field were interviewed to collect a unique dataset to evaluate the market potential of this platform.

Food-pharma convergence in medical nutrition- best of both worlds?

At present, industries within the health and life science sector are moving towards one another resulting in new industries such as the medical nutrition industry. Medical nutrition products are specific nutritional compositions for intervention in disease progression and symptom alleviation. Industry convergence, described as the blurring of boundaries between industries, plays a crucial role in the shaping of new markets and industries.

Patient needs and research priorities in the enteral nutrition market - a quantitative prioritization analysis.

Background & Aims: A quantitative systematic identification and prioritization of unmet needs and research opportunities in relation to enteral nutrition was conducted by means of a tailor-made health research prioritization process.

Methods: The research objectives were reached by conducting qualitative interviews followed by quantitative questionnaires targeting enteral nutrition key opinion leaders (KOLs). (1) Define disease areas that deserve more research attention; (2) Rank importance of product characteristics of tube feeding (TF) and oral nutritional supplements (ONS); (3) Assess involvement of KOLs in enteral nutrition R&D process.

Development of new generation influenza vaccines: recipes for success?

As infectious diseases cause approximately 25% of the annual global mortality, vaccines are found to be a time proven and promising response to infectious disease need. However, like for pharmaceutical small molecules, vaccine development is lengthy, risky and resource demanding. Faced with an attrition rate estimated around 80%, key opinion leaders were interviewed with the question: is there a recipe for success?

The gold industry standard for risk and cost of drug and vaccine development revisited.

Gold dimensions of pharmaceutical drug development indicate that it takes on average 11.9 years, with an investment around US$ 0.8 Billion, to launch one product on the market.

Improving the quality of drug research or simply increasing its cost? An evidence-based study of the cost for data monitoring in clinical trials.

Aim: Procedures for verification of data from clinical studies are intended to maintain reliability for clinical trial results. Guidelines or legislations relating to clinical data management are of limited value and no study has yet demonstrated its effectiveness.

Method: Sponsor queries and dual entry procedures from one CRO on three different phase I trials are analysed on content, impact and cost.