Even so, the Welsh Assembly Government has issued very specific instructions as to exactly what services fall under whose responsibility - precisely to end this sort of unseemly wrangling where the patient is the one who ends up losing out.

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But even more important, the best performing companies develop additional capabilities that are very specific to their chosen innovation strategies.

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One big question: would the limited data Sarepta has so far collected from a very small clinical trial of its drug eteplirsen, a treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy that is caused by a very specific type of mutation, be enough to warrant filing with the Food and Drug Administration and perhaps even gain approval?

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