Solving hard problems in biopharma usually starts like this: expert teams of specialists develop a research premise, test it in a carefully-defined cohort of patients and then validate the results using standard randomized methodologies. Failure rates are high because, at heart, drug research remains a messy exercise in improvisation. That is because we still do not know the basics of how nature uses physics to make the biology that determines individual health status.
Given the sheer number of variables in disease causation, an extended inter-disciplinary approach to preclinical research may offer the best...