NPR ran a story today about how drug companies are not the only ones making money inventing new medicines for the market. A man in Massachusetts has brought three drugs to market almost on his own.
His process is the same as the big drug makers, but he farms out each aspect of the process to independent labs and specialists. When the drug starts to succeed in trials, he sells it to one of the big companies.
Who competes with whom?
This is an example of how human infrastructure can replace physical infrastructure. The standard process for creating a new drug is to build a large building and fill it with smart people and expensive equipment and surround it with parking lots. The cost can easily exceed 60 million just to bring a drug to trials – the man in Massachusetts can do it of less than 6 million.
Mitigation of risk, waste, and social burden
Not only are market victories less expensive, but so are market failures. Hundreds of thousands of hours are saved in commute times and millions of miles stay off the freeways. “Independent Lab Specialists” are in fact, independent and don’t need to migrate from company to company chasing the next project.
As the article states, every step in the process for approving a drug is the same – without the unnecessary physical infrastructure. Sure, virtual work has been around a long time, the difference is when the corporate structure itself shifts to a series of small integrated corporations.
If virtualization can revolutionize the medical industry – it can revolutionize all industries.
Social Flights is attempting to revolutionize the Aviation industry in a similar way. Large Hub Airports represent physical infrastructure through which people and airplanes are sorted and matched. The majority of US commercial traffic passes through Hub Airports. Yet, the majority of passengers are forced to drive a substantial distance to reach a hub departure. Then they fly to a place that they have no intention of going only to transfer to another plane that also is not going where they intend to go. Finally, they drive a substantial distance to get where they really want to go.
The congestion and physical footprint supporting large airports is substantial. The burden on both the local and distant communities served by the hub airport is severe. Thousands of people and vast resources are deployed to support the infrastructure, not necessarily the value proposition to the passengers or the communities.
The Airlines need to understand that their customer is the community, their supplier is the community, and their competitor is the community. If they lose track of any one of these pillars, the system will become ripe for disruption.
