Antibiotic Resistant Staph Antibiotic Discovered

edward.virtually@pob writes "CNN is reporting that a team of scientists has discovered an extremely effective killer of the antibiotic resistant form of staph infection occuring naturally in rock pools. Unfortunately, despite the obvious cheap potential availability of this cure, do not expect it to be cheaply available. The employer of the scientists, AquaPharm Bio-Discovery Limited, the story notes 'is keeping the identity of its MRSA-killing bacteria a closely guarded secret, and taken out patents on how they can be cultivated and used.' Oh well."

Comments

Patenting..

[sporty]

I see nothing wrong with pantenting the process so long as the patent isn't abused.

Remember claritin before the FDA deemed it fine to go over the counter? It was stupifying the price drop.

I hope these people don't find the cure for AIDS. That would be one that would be ethically/morally wrong to abuse.

Re:Patenting..

[xedd]

The problem is that this stuff requires years of research.

Unless of course, a bulk of the research was actually done in public universities, funded by taxpayers. It can often be the case.

There are drugs that make it to the end of 10 year trials, and fail, with billions going down the drain.

And the accountants can easily claim a tax-loss on it. Nobody with any brains will cry a single friggin tear over that.

*THIS* is what you pay for, not the manufacturing cost.

We also pay for obscenely extravagant bonuses for executives who do no research, but who spend 50% of their time planning corporate games, such as mega debt-creating mergers and acquisitions, and the other 50% of the time flying in corporate owned jets, playing golf or skiing, or partying at corporate retreats.

Nah, Dude. Sorry.
It ain't so clean and simple as that.

Re:Patenting..

[HenryFlower]

You are including Medco's sales in your $40Bn figure. The correct figure for the Merck unit is aproximately $20Bn, of which the $2.4Bn R&D figure represents 12% of sales. Further, you need to take out the Medco proportion of G&A, advertising and marketing, and account for the "materials and production" line (which accounts for the cost of producing drugs) noted in the filing. Unfortunately, although the filing breaks out the revenue from Medco, it does not break out the costs, but the situation is clearly not as absurd as you suggest.

Let's look at this the other way: if there was no ability to patent drugs, would Merck be able to afford the $2.4Bn in R&D costs? (The true cost of R&D is probably higher than this, as there are certainly some in-licensing costs to account for here, in which Merck purchases compounds from other companies).

Yes, Merck spends a good deal on marketing, and makes a very healthy profit. The profit comes from the blockbuster model most of the large companies follow: there is some volatility in R&D spend, but much higher volatility in the market. A strong drug can generate orders of magnitude more dollars than the R&D spend. With such a model, pharma companies tend to blitz market, attempting to make as much as they can. The spend on marketing because they make even more in profits. All of that, however, presupposes that they have good drugs to sell.

It is rare that any one company has a "single source" of something that people need. Much profit these days in is antihyperlipidemia drugs, of which there are many. Likewise, there are two major Cox-II inhibitor drugs on the market, with more coming. Of the top classes of drugs, only Pfizer has a semi-monopoly with Viagra.

Part of the problem here is our irrational health care system. I'd agree with you (I'd imagine) that with a more rational healthcare system, the average cost per drug would be less, marketing costs would be less, and there would still be enough funding for R&D.

Something has got to be done...

[sawilson]

About these pharmaceutical companies that are more
than willing to sell off their discoveries to the
highest bidder instead of doing what's right for
humanity. I mean, for christ sakes. How vampirical
is it to put profit about human lives? I think
Chris Rock said something to the effect that we
haven't cured a disease in 50 some odd years, but
we used to do it twice a week. It's really sad.

Re:It might even be a good thing to keep it secret

[ketamine-bp]

The problem is the drug should be _regulated_ not _patented_. i.e. the patient taking the drug should obtain it in a reasonable price, but he should be put in isolation in a biosafety-level-whatever center for diagnosis & treatment.

Nail On The Head Dept.

[ackthpt]

AquaPharm Bio-Discovery Limited, the story notes 'is keeping the identity of its MRSA-killing bacteria a closely guarded secret, and taken out patents on how they can be cultivated and used.' Oh well."

With all the complaining about how the USPTO awards this or that patent for the obvious things, it's this patenting of medicinces which I find the most anti-social. It's like, "I'm going to discover something which may save lives, but I want the ability to restrict, for profit, how it gets used." Makes me feel my healthcare premiums aren't so much an insurance policy as a licensing fee. While I feel people do need compensation for their efforts, I feel any kind of patent awarded on medicines or medical treatments should have a much limited scope. I.e. any pharmacutical should be allowed to produce the medication with a minimal fee. Otherwise we become embroiled in these debates, like africans can't afford this or that because they cannot afford it, so they die, and it's a fait acompli massacre or genocide.

And then there's the separate issue of this antibiotic: how long before staph is resistant to it, too.

The best thing I ever did to fight respiratory infections was to stop eating antibiotic laden meat.

An new antibiotic? How about a new approach

[xA40D]

I read a while back that the antibiotic approach to dealing with bacteria will always result in resistant strains of that bacteria. You can mitigate the problem by ensuring people take the full course of antibiotics, but eventually resistant strains will emerge.

The article went on to note that a diferent approach seemed to be 100% effective in killing bacteria.

Bacteriophages.

Very simply if you take sample from the places that a particular strain of a bacteria is known to be present - an then alalyse these samples - you will eventually find a virus that simply eats the bacteria. Cultivate large amounts of the virus, and you can use it to kill the bacteria.

The article highlighted the Russians who, during the cold war, became quite good with Bateriophages. But that problems with patents and financing prevented the commercial exploitation
of their knowlegebase.

From what I could understand bacteriophage development is so simple, it would be impossible to make any money out of it.

Can't make any money out of it?!!?

Makes you think.

Re:And they shouldn't make money why?

[haystor]

"Found" in a rock pool isn't exactly how it all came about either. They have probably looked thousands of places cataloging millions of strains of bacteria. Its not like they wandered up to a pool and the damn thing had a sign on it.

If its so "obvious" that it should be common knowledge just because it was found in a pool, how come it wasn't stumbled upon before? The fact that it has been found now is good indication that drug companies have been encouraged to look for such things.

I do think it would be an interesting economic model though to put a bounty on certain types of drugs, say $2 billion for a antibiotic-resistant staph antibiotic. When funded by the whole world, numbers like $10billion for major drugs wouldn't be that high. Insurance companies would likely offer bounties as well.

Re:which is why

[Nurseman]

The Government DOES put BILLIONS of dollars into this kind of research. The amount of Government money in research in astounding. Many research projects split funding between the Government and the drug companies.

Bacteriophage *won't* work

[Lady Lance]

Even before we really started to gain mastery over antibiotics, bacteriophages were studied quite extensively as a means for eradicating disease within in a patient. The problem? They simply don't work. Study after study has shown that sufficient numbers can't be delivered to the patient, and even when they are they don't have the anticipated the effect (ie bacteria don't die). You have to remember that the human body is hella complicated, and what will work on simple media won't necessarily work in vitro. I don't remember all the theories as to why it doesn't work, but I'm pretty sure the immune system is one of them--bacteriophages are non-self. The body can't differentiate between a "good" non-self and a "bad" non-self and will quickly destroy the viruses--if they even survive digestion. Yes, there is a camp that believe that treatment by bacteriophage works, but the scientific community as a whole has nixed the whole idea as there has yet to be conclusive proof that it does.

This is...

[Anonymous Coward]

...bullshit. I understand that people deserve to be compensated for their time and efforts even in the field of medical R&D, but this is ridiculous. Something with such widesweeping implications and of such potential benefit to humanity should not be patented. Fortunately, I contend that the concept of patenting something that occurs naturally is stupid on it's face. It doesn't matter how they patent it. Once the information has been disclosed it will find it's way to freedom.

Motive

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see, that antibiotic (or at least the raw form) has probably been in those rocks for hundreds, if not thousands or millions of years. If it was easy to find and required no effort to find it, test it (how long did it take to do so?), and manufacture it, someone already would have done so. Someone had to spend money and time to discover it. Why is it wrong for them to get paid for their effort? If they hadn't looked it could be 50 years before it had even been found, would that have been better?

No one will sponsor efforts like this (or laying cable or fiber for that matter) if they aren't going to get a return on their money. Likewise no one (well few people) is going to perform the work without getting paid for their effort.

Drug Resistance

[silentbozo]

Consider how important it is to keep antibiotics in reserve. Previously, Cipro was the last line of defense - and it was used up during the anthrax scare. There's plenty of Cipro to go around, but the usefulness has dropped significantly since the appearance of bacteria resistant to Cipro have appeared.

For those of you who don't remember biology, bacteria resistance is particularly nasty because unrelated kinds of bacteria can actually swap genes for traits (including resistance.) Thus, you could take an incomplete course of antibiotics, and end up with drug-resistant e-coli in your gut (which are harmless.) Then, you catch a nastier infection (say, a bacterial pneumonia), the nasty bacterium manages to swap genes with your drug-resistant e-coli, and WHAM, you've got a deadly infection that is resistant to all available drugs. Hospitals are particularly deadly because they tend to treat the sickest patients with the most advanced drugs... and as a result many drug resistant strains LIVE IN HOSPITALS! (Yes, this is a true fact - disinfection is a serious bitch with certain strains of bacteria...)

The longer they keep this new stuff away from the general public, the better it will be in the event we REALLY need it.

Re:Drug Resistance

[juushin]

To my knowledge Ciprofloxacin has never been considered the antibiotic of last resort. I believe you are mistaking this for Vancomycin.