Dr. Craig Crews, PhD, Crews Laboratory at Yale University

Interview date: September 13, 2013

On this week's show, Dr. Craig Crews of the Crews Laboratory describes his discovery and development of carfilzomib. He discusses the challenge labs have with only 10 out of 100 submitted research projects getting NIH funding and the need for patients to push for greater federal funding if we are to have more successes in the future.  He describes a drug's "Valley of Death" - or the jump from the academic institution into the next stage of development, and how he overcame that for carfilzomib by creating his own biotech company. He describes the drug funding continuum and the important role of new biotechs to fill an existing gap and get a drug across the finish line. He shares the fast-track success of carfilzomib because the Phase II results were so promising and his lab's quest to teach the ability to pick future winners by looking at promising outliers.