Perhaps it's the sweet California air, but the pervasive (though not universal) pessimism in biopharma these days is really bumming me out.  Consequently, I'd like to discuss three potential responses to difficult industry problems.

The crisis in financing is having a chilling effect on biomedical innovation. As discussed in my last column, the main problem in our industry is that the sheer cost of drug development has become almost prohibitively expensive, effectively pricing almost everyone but the largest companies out of the market.

Successfully translating scientific discoveries requires a sense of urgency, which some disease foundations seem to have, and many big pharmas appear to need. Patients waiting expectantly for medical research to produce important new cures are finding bad news almost everywhere they turn.

Without profound changes in the scientific and regulatory environment, things will remain very tough for the agile disruptor -- relatively good news for established giants, presumably less good news for patients and for progress.

The FDA is restricting the speech of private drug firms. This may violate the First Amendment rights of drugs companies.

The intriguing scientific question is how can bariatric surgery result in an almost immediate improvement in the insulin resistance profile of diabetic patients?

By keeping the focus on better health for real people, perhaps we’ll develop both the humility to recognize how little we still understand as well as the drive to ensure — and emphatically demand — that our advances ultimately wind up not only in papers, but also in patients.

The new Obama drug initiative is of a piece with the administration's abiding faith in the virtue of government investment as a trump to private entrepreneurism. At the core of this religion is a faith that that the political allocation of capital leads to better, or at least more "equitable" outcomes.