Your front page story “Asthma drug ‘gamechanger’ could revolutionise treatment” (6 August) suffers from a typical problem in the reporting of innovation in drug discovery and development. The new drug in question, Fevipiprant – developed by Novartis – will be the end result of many years of painstaking and costly research and development, yet Novartis is not credited for this innovation until 582 words into a 942-word article, and, yes, that’s off the front page.
The clinicians that ran the trial are critical partners, and are rightly mentioned early and often in the article. Drug R&D, however, relies on partnership between drug companies, clinicians, patients and regulators. In a case of wrongdoing we could expect to see Novartis in the headline of this article, but when a drug company has genuine positive impact, we don’t do a good job in assigning credit where it is due. One might argue that pharmaceutical companies are big enough to survive without public recognition, but in a post-Brexit environment, when pharma companies are reviewing their decisions about where to do R&D, little things could make a big difference.
Michael Barnes
Reader, Queen Mary University of London
• You note that, “according to the British Lung Foundation, the number of people with asthma rose significantly between 2004 and 2012” and that the NHS considers “increased air pollution, chlorine in swimming pools and modern hygiene standards to be key factors in the development of the disease”.
Surely it would be sensible, instead of finding a “cure” for the affliction, which the drug is not, it might be wiser to tackle the environmental hazards causing the problem. Not only would asthma suffers benefit, but so too would other sectors of society, and not least the Earth itself.
Janne Tooby
Bransford, Worcestershire
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