A target de-risking index that counts failures as well as successes
For each drug target, show how many programmes have been tried against it and how many failed, so new teams know what they are up against.
Target prioritisation platforms (Open Targets) weight positive evidence. A complementary index that aggregates discontinued programmes, failed trials and deposited negative preclinical results per target and indication, with reasons where known, would give a Bayesian prior: a target with eight failed programmes and no success should require a stronger hypothesis than one never tried. Publicly available pipeline data makes a first version feasible now.
- Failures are hidden · Negative trials, failed drugs and abandoned programmes are rarely published, so the same mistakes are repeated.
- The undruggable drivers · The proteins that drive most cancers, such as MYC, mutant p53 and most RAS variants, still have no good drug.
Pages like this
not linked directly; found by shared links- IdeaGrant progress reports must list what did not work
Shares A registry for preclinical experiments that did not work, Failures are hidden.
- IdeaA public registry of cancer treatments that were later shown not to work
Shares A machine-readable taxonomy of why cancer drugs fail, Failures are hidden.
- IdeaLiving systematic reviews of animal and organoid evidence before every new trial
Shares A registry for preclinical experiments that did not work, Failures are hidden.
- IdeaSmall grants that pay scientists to write up abandoned projects
Shares A registry for preclinical experiments that did not work, Failures are hidden.
- IdeaBounties for documented failed replications of high-impact findings
Shares A registry for preclinical experiments that did not work, Failures are hidden.
- IdeaScore every preclinical model by how often it predicted the clinical result
Shares A machine-readable taxonomy of why cancer drugs fail, Failures are hidden.
- IdeaAn annual map of high-burden questions that nobody is funding
Shares Open Targets Platform, Failures are hidden.
- IdeaA funder-backed, indexed journal of negative and inconclusive cancer results
Shares A registry for preclinical experiments that did not work, Failures are hidden.