Narcotics research, rehabilitation, and treatment. Hearings, Ninety ...

217Mr. Wiggins. "\Yliere else is it being done or should it be done ?Dr. Jaffe. Well, my experience has been that we do not have aneffective mechanism for developing drugs which don't have a potentiallysignificant commercial market. Drug houses do not want—andat least in my own experience—to develop drugs which have nomarket, utilizing their own resource and their own personnel and theirown laboratory facilities.On the other hand. I think we have precious little in the way of thatkind of resource within the public sector. Generally, universities arenot in the business of developing drugs.Mr. WiGGixs. What suggestions might you make to the committeeif we are interested in encouraging the development of such drugs?Dr. Jaffe. Well, I am not sure that I know enough about the developmentof pharmaceutical preparations to make really meaningfulsuggestions on it. I suspect there is some difficulty with respect topatent problems. As soon as you give subsidies to a commercial organization,it then loses the possibility of distributing and marketingthat product for profit.Mr. Wiggins. Well, could it be done alternatively or together at theNational Institutes of Health or at universities operating undergrants ?Dr. Jaffe. I think it could be, but traditionally universities havenot been in the drug development business and it would mean thinkingabout what would be necessary to develop that capacity withina university.JThe difficulty with many universities, at least until recently, isthat Govermnent encourages universities to apply for grants thatrun for 3 or 4 years. The university recruits people and brings themfrom wherever they were to the university. Their families are there.And then the grants run out. The Government just says, well, we haveother priorities now. The university is left with the problem of staffpeople who nobody wants any more. They are surplus. This is a humanproblem.If the university doesn't teach the development of pharmaceuticalproducts, then, you know, it is very difficult to get it involved in developingthis kind of thing.There are, you know, schools of pharmacy, but whether or not theyare in the business of developing drugs, I can't say. The developmentof new pharmaceuticals is npt^^y area^of expertise.Mr. Wiggins. All right.' -v ...^.,Chairman Pepper. Excuse me;"^,, ^.^ r (^ • r^^ ^Apropos to what Mr. Wiggins was asking you, the suggestion wasmade the other day that it might be possible for the U.S. Governmentto give grants to drug houses to carry on approved research in areaswhere the Government desired such research be carried on, with theunderstanding that if the company ever profited from the distributionof that drug, the United States would get its money back, and inthat way you would allow the company to retain the ownership of,the patent while reimbursing the Government should the researchproduce a drug that is economically profitable.Dr. Jaffe. That sounds like a very creative approach to me. I wonderwhether or not it can be accomplished. Certainly it is the firsttime I have heard that suggestion. I know it has been a stumblingblock for most pharmaceutical houses.60-296—71—pt. 1 15