The following recent paper:
Despina G. Contopoulos-Ioannidis, George A. Alexiou, Theodore C. Gouvias,
and John P. A. Ioannidis, "Life Cycle of Translational Research for Medical
Interventions," Science (5 September 2008) Vol. 321, no. 5894, 1298 - 1299.
(link:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/321/5894/1298)
may be of interest to those following this thread. Alma mentions
measurements of ROI, and the paper is an attempt to measure the time between
an initial discovery and a highly-cited clinical trial showing effective
intervention. One can imagine expanding this study to encompass clinical
trials that did not have a positive outcome, or automating the process in
order to cover a representative sample of *all* reported trials, so as to
paint a better picture of actual ROI.
In case the paper is of interest, Janet Stemwedel's blog post about it will
likely be useful also:
http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2008/10/tracking_the_lag_between_promi.php
Bill Hooker
www.sennoma.net
Received on Wed Oct 08 2008 - 10:41:11 BST