Time Dilation

The faster we appear to be moving in discovery, it seems, the more pronounced the gap between technology advances and product commercialization. When we get back to earth-bound reality, new products aren't getting to the market any faster than they used to, and the speed of physician adoption appears to be a constant. The idea plays out in drug development, where we have to take the time to study the effect of a drug candidate in man before we can determine what clinical questions researchers should ask, much less what the answers are. It will also play out in personalized medicine: We're still not to the point where the first SNP panel has made its way into a pivotal trial, much less to regulatory agencies, physicians, or patient/consumers. That means the debate about the social or ethical ramifications of collecting and using pharmacogenomic information, and an understanding of the basis for the forces that will push against rapid adoption are premature. In a manner of speaking, we haven't even gotten to the stage of testing our responses in patieants.