Failing Forward: The Slow Process of Searching for Cures

December 10, 2014

(The Atlantic) – The doctors and scientists hunting for new cures and treatments work in a constant state of tension. They operate in a tremendously high-stakes environment, pouring years of their lives into research as the people who inspire them continue to suffer and even die. Drug hunters face failure after failure, almost never followed by success. Decades of work flame out. Promising ideas turn into dead ends. For every 10,000 compounds they explore, scientists wind up with just one drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Even when medical science moves as fast as it can—and today, it’s moving faster than ever before—it’s still an agonizingly slow process.