The man making antibodies smarter

Prof. Yanay Ofran's amazing story about the pursuit of an antibody that will save the world from disease Shlomit Lan and Gali Weinreb Professor Yanay Ofran, founder and CEO of Biolojic Design, a company that develops smart antibodies designed to treat a variety of diseases, is frustrated. "Humanity invests $300 billion each year in drug development, and what do we get? At most, we get a few dozen medications a year, most of which don't solve the problems, and give an additional three weeks of life on average to patients with pancreatic cancer, or manage to inject a medication that to date was given via infusion. Those are the breakthroughs," he says despairingly. But Ofran does not think the pharmaceutical companies are the only culprit. "The drug companies are portrayed as a devil who says, 'I won't cure this because it's not worth my while.' But these companies do have a legal obligation towards their shareholders, not to develop drugs unless there's an economic incentive. The problem, as analyzed by Ofran, is much more complicated and therefore far more difficult to treat. "There are three players sitting around the drug development table: science, regulation and the business world.