The notorious ex-pharmaceutical executive fresh from prison announced his latest venture on Monday, creating a "Web3 drug discovery platform" that traffics in his owncryptocurrencies.
According to the press release, the platform is called Druglike. The platform's goals are lofty, but the details are very vague, and Shkreli's intentions have drawn skepticism. It's not clear if the enterprise will run afoul of his lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry, which stems from the abrupt and callous 4,000 percent price hike of a life-saving drug.
The platform aims to make drug discovery more affordable and accessible. Druglike will remove barriers to early-stage drug discovery, increase innovation and allow a broader group of contributors to share the rewards, according to the press release. The communities that are most in need of access to these tools are those focused on rare diseases.
Virtual screens can sometimes be used in the early stages of drug development. In these cases, pharmaceutical scientists first identify a target that plays a critical role in the development of a disease. Researchers look for compounds or small Molecules that can interfere with the target and keep it from working. It can be done in a physical lab with huge libraries of compounds. It can be done using specialized software and a lot of computing power.
AdvertisementThe Druglike is imagined to come in that location. Druglike's website has a document titled "How the company's platform would work" that was written by Shkreli's associate. It would use a network of task providers, solvers, and validators to run a virtual drug screening program. FoldIt is an online puzzle game that uses distributed computing and crowdsourced data to fold and predict its structures.
Druglike's platform is said to be incorporating cryptocurrencies when users complete tasks. The "proof-of-optimization" concept is described as a novel verification step for screening work similar to the "proof-of-work" method.
There is a proposal to use a distributed ledger to store records of proof solutions. Sommer writes that smart contracts allow secure distribution of rewards.
For now, it's not clear how the transactions will generate value. An online exchange suggested that the company could look for financing for the project.
Shkreli has been banned from social media but he still has an account on the site. Shkreli hosted a discussion about the project after announcing the company Monday.
He denied that the platform would violate his lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry. He said that writing code in Github doesn't make you a pharmaceutical company.
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