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From Mike Myers, President, Palio (@mmyerspalio)

As a continuation of the theme brought forth in my recent post “Healthcare costs and pharmaceuticals – who’s the bad guy?,” I wanted to share an example of the positives that exist and continue in the pharmaceutical industry. In light of recent information that has come to light about GSK and Avandia, this may seem like “small potatoes.” In reality, this is one example of the countless number of “good” activities conducted by an industry that is all too often seen as the “bad guy.”

At a time when everyone seems to increasingly want to jump on the anti-pharma bandwagon, I was happy to see that the media is trumpeting the recent research collaboration between Eli Lilly, Pfizer and Merck. A not-for-profit, the company “will help speed up research on new medicines to treat gastric and lung cancers. The company, which will be called the Asian Cancer Research Group, is one of the first examples of a collaboration among major drug companies to combine resources and expertise to rapidly increase the knowledge of a disease and the disease process.”

“Over the next two years, the three companies will work on creating an extensive pharmacogenomic cancer database. The database will consist of information taken from about 2,000 tissue samples from patients with lung and gastric cancer and will be made available to researchers around the world.”

“Through its work and the subsequent sharing of information, the ACRG hopes to empower researchers, foster innovation and improve the prognosis and treatment of patients with cancer,” said Gary Gilliland, M.D., Ph.D., senior vice president and franchise head, Oncology, Merck Research Laboratories.

On all fronts, I think that this is an outstanding move. In what other industries do we see not-for-profits being set up by competitors?

As I’ve said previously, take a closer look. The guy wearing the black hat may not be the one you thought. Anyone out there want to shoot back?