ProjectCure

What is ProjectCure?

The purpose of ProjectCure is to create a way for consumers to directly fund/support life science research projects.  It consists of two stages: 1) a TV show around life science research projects (similar to Top Chef, Project Runway, American Idol) and 2) a web site (similar to KickStarter, Quirky) that provides an ability for people to fund/support life science research projects.

The Problem

Research can be divided into stages:

1. Early-stage
2. Translational/Validation
3. Late-stage

There are three sources of funding for research that, roughly, coincide with each stage (need statistics):

1. Government through grants, which are usually targeting fundamental research
2. Foundations which could target all stages of research
3. Industry, which is interested in investing into product-orienter research leading to:
1. investment to start a company
2. license patent to another company

Problem: the second step (translational/validation) is underfunded -

1. government will not support because it is not basic research
2. industry won't invest because:
1. high risk of failure
2. research is too far away from the possibility of being monetized
3. no way to monetize (no patent = no blockbuster drug)
3. this leaves foundations, but they are not enough
1. Question: can we get statistics to validate this?
2. Also, how efficient are foundations?  Administrative costs?

Example: For example, a compound might show promise in targeting certain cancer cell lines and efficacy in mouse models of a certain cancers. Now there is a need to test the compound in humans, but before it can be administered to people it needs to pass a number of standard tests, such as a toxicology screen, a pharmacokinetic profile and a tissue distribution analysis. The government will not pay for these tests because it is no longer basic research, and a biotech company won't pick the compound up because the risk of failure is too high and a drug reaching the market is too far. 

Consumer is Interested: while neither the government nor the industry is interested in funding the next step, the consumer is very interested.  So the idea behind ProjectCure is to create an avenue for the consumer to get involved.

Funding Need: the "next steps" in question require anywhere between 100K and 2 million and from months to years to yield results.

What we propose is to create avenues for the consumer market to become involved in funding specific steps in projects.  We propose to do this in three steps:

1. TV Show: partner with larger media company to create a competition similar to ProjectRunway and American Idol.  Multiple potential candidates would be identified and would participate.
1. The show would run for 2-5 years.
2. The purpose is to create awareness on the market in preparation for step 2 below
2. Web Site: after the initial push is done through media creating market awareness, traffic is retained on a web site which:
1. allows for segmentation by disease/interest
2. tracks performance of labs

How does the Audience Participate?  How do Projects get Funded?

Money is raised for projects in the following manner:

• Advertising - the show would attract a large audience.  Throughout the show, people vote on who they would like to be funded.  The winner is funded through part of the ad revenue generated by the program.
• Donations/Funding - people can offer to give money directly towards projects.  This may be considered a donation model, however, as a consumer, I see this more as a purchase of a service - I, for one, want to fund cancer research, so I actually get something in return when I know my money is being put to good use.
• Investment - Moshe's "Invest, Don't Donate" would encourage people to contribute money through sharing profit in the event of success.  While unlikely to become a successful financial instrument, this model could attract people like Michael Milken and Warren Buffett, who are already very active in healthcare and would likely bring along a long consumer tail.

Project Candiates

The main requirement from project candidates is transparency - the project deliverables, methodology, and timeline should be clearly identified making sure that the money is applied as initially requested.

Possible Structure of the Competition (Gina)

• 5-10 individuals are selected as judges to decide on the winning project (Gina's idea)
• regular people that audience can relate to
• selection process can be through American Idol model to add spice (Nikita's suggestion)
• The popular judges panel is presented with various projects in a way that they understand
• Cool graphics produced by show together with the lab
• Commentary by scientific advisor panel
• etc.
• Audience is engaged by following the the decision process

Alternative Model (Crick)

• Scientist teams present to a popular panel and fail (nothing is as entertaining as failure)
• Scientist teams are coached by professionals through various stages of presentation.  Ex:
• Fundamentals
• Business Model
• Production process
• Analysis of Target Market 
• Scientist teams re-present to a popular panel and succeed

Alternative Model (Zotov)

• Run in parallel:
• Story of a patient with his triumphs 
• Story of a researchers with his struggles 

Notes

• Viv: focus on selection of judges.  American Idol: everyone knows Simon.

Structure of competition (Old)

The following is a suggested structure for the competition:

Round 1: General presentation of the lab, technology, purpose.  Discussion by specialists.

Round 2: Analysis of the probability and parameteres of success.

Round 3: Analysis of next step upon success.

Round 4: demonstration of prior work that indicates that the next step is correct

Round 5: discussion and defense standing up to high-profile figures

Question: the primary question that we are grappling with at the moment is how to make this program entertaining.  Some possibilities include:

• Having an entertaining judge panel - imagine Clooney arguing with Simon and Jeff Sachs.
• Emphasis on visualization of mechanisms

• Taking an Extreme Home Makeover approach and attaching a human interest piece to each research project in the competition (e.g. if a team was performing research on advanced prosthetic devices, then the program could chronicle the team's progression as well as the difficulties faced by a patient missing a limb)- This would not only add a storyline to the program but also help orient the audience to the purpose of the research and the implications of its success.

Benefits of ProjectCure

• Elimination of academic politics - this approach forces transparency upon its participants
• Improvement of pipeline - companies will be standing at the other end of this system ready to take up successful projects.
• Public Awareness - people already spend a lot of time taking pleasure from observing the success of people who want to excel in programs like ProjectRunway, TopModel, Cooking competitions, etc.  Now they will enjoy the same benefits knowing that they are also helping push research
• Trust through Transparency - people don't donate to organizations because they feel that organizations are not trustworthy.  This approach raises money for a specific project, a specific test with quantifiable results.
• Support of Results - this approach would support labs that produce results over labs that have big names.

Caveats

The following concerns have been raised:

• Sensitivity to Subject Matter- this project largely hinges on establishing an element of competition between next step projects, which are eventually related to disease.  And while news of something being successfully tested is good, news of some technology failing is bad.  And it is a tragic catch-22 situation when something important doesn't get funded.  But something is better than nothing...  Hopefully it would be possible to do this program in a tasteful way.
• Animal research that may be a necessary component is not appropriate for TV medium

Needs

• We need to establish whether our understanding of research funding gaps is correct.  (Analysis being performed by Revekka)
• Need to figure out how to hit the market large-scale, which needs answers to questions:
• How to make this entertaining?
• Who should be the first candidates?
• After major questions are answered, we can seek out investors/partners.
• Any major network should be interested
• Disover channel especially
• Company sponsorships?

Operations

• JoVE could be used to recruit initial projects - has extensive editorial arm 
• Must have: very good director to create the show (Christopher Nolan?)

Relevant

• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/science/12crowd.html?_r=2 - hat-tip: Andreas R.
• http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/helping-new-drugs-out-of-academias-valley-of-death/ - hat-tip: Paul T.

Various notes

Contact

If you are interested in working with us on this project, please drop me a line at:

me@nikitab.com

or call at

609.462.6715