AIDS Vaccine Panel Discussion [Minutes]

7-APR-97 PACHA AIDS VACCINE PANEL DISCUSSION - p. 26

I will get into the recommendations. First, the date. My view is we need a
date. You need to push to generate a sense of the urgency here. If everybody here
agrees that 7 to 10 years is possible, then if you are the CEO of the company, you have
no doubt that the CEO will say, okay, you make it in 5. That's how it works. The
President of the United States will have the authority and the will to generate that.
Make it in 5. If you say "7 years are possible," make it in 5.
Second, the budget. The current budget, basic research has covered everything.
This virus has been one of the best-funded medical research projects. But there is
something missing. That is this pipeline. Why do we use additional money to create
this mechanism which did not exist before? Use this additional money to contract to
the private biotech industry, to contract them to produce to a certain stage, to have
them overcome this pipeline and the pilot production system and problem and so on.
So additional money is needed. You need a different structure.
The coordinator. You don't need a coordinator, you need a CEO.
Coordinators have no power. I wouldn't take that job.
(Laughter.)
DR. LU: You need a CEO. You need power to do this. Otherwise, don't bother to do that.
Last, the consortium. I think this format is great. After 15 years in this, I'm
glad to see this is finally happening. You need to keep this forum going, whether you
create a new one or keep this going. Not so frequently. Once a year, twice a year.
Keep this momentum going. That will keep us alive to do this.
The final thing is that I agree with the Levine Committee on the urgent need to
create a different study section in NIH to review the grant applications. I'll give you an
example. When I first came from Harvard to the company, I wrote a grant and
proposed to use recombinant Vibrio cholera to express SIV antigen in monkeys. Very
great idea. I got the best score, I mean in the top 10 percent, easily funded. But I have
to say, I was really green at that time. I mean, that idea was dumb, because for one
thing, Vibrio cholera does not infect the monkey.
Three years later I learned from my lessons and proposed one of the best grants
I thought I did. I proposed to study whole-killed HIV-1 vaccine in monkeys. We
haven't studied enough for the HIV whole-killed. The score I got from the same
committee is the bottom 10 percent. Why? Because there's no creativity there. What
are you looking for? Are you looking for creativity, or are you looking for the
product?

So I guess my time is up.