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Trials for Type 1 Diabetes Cure
An anonymous reader writes "According to this New York Times article, the pharmaceutical companies and NIH are shunning research for a cure for Type 1 diabetes. There's no money in a cure using medicine with an expired patent. Dr Faustman (researcher/professor at Harvard Medical School) has cured type 1 diabetes in mice and has been approved for Phase 1 clinical trials in humans. The only problem is raising the money, which Lee Iacocca is helping with."
Without a patent, drug companies face competition from those who put no money into research, trials, and FDA approval. Whoever pays for the drug research would incur severe losses. We'd depend almost entirely on government funding, academic research, chance, and philanthropy to develop new drugs.
When it becomes uneconomical to develop a promising drug, usually because it treats too rare of a disease, but sometimes due to other reasons, we call those orphan drugs. Sometimes the government intervenes and finishes the research. Maybe it'll happen this time.
Yeah but them drug companies are standing on research that was funded by the govt and carried out at public universities. Cox2 enzyme is a prime example of a billion dollar industry handed from a university to the drug companies for free. Not all of those billions the drug companies claim to be spending are actually coming out of their own pockets. They may be finishing the research privately but you can bet you and I paid for the startup costs.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
The article is mixed up. Nobody is shunning islet-cell transplantation for (IDDM) diabetes. Many people in the field believe that the currently most promising procedure is one developed by surgeon James Shapiro in Canada. It is in human patient trials in more than one country already now. A drawback of course (a big one for some who would otherwise be potential patients) is the need for immunosuppressant therapy after the surgical procedure.
The 'big bad pharmaceutical co' angle is mixed up too. This is a surgical procedure. There is no new pharmaceutical at the centre of it. But if new combinations of immunosuppressants prove specially well adapted to patients who have this procedure, that would quite likely be a new combination of features, and patent protection would likely be available for whatever it turns out to be, anyway.
-wb-
Yes, money makes things happen.
In this case, it won't be the big medical companies pushing it. It'll be insurers, which stand to save tons of money if they can cure diabetics. This overlaps with governments, since most western governments are paying at least some of the medical costs (medicare in the US, much larger programs in Canada and the EU).
And while the big medical corps may resist losing their cash cow, the companies that make generic drugs will gladly pump out the patent-expired medicines used by this cure.
Why? This statement is 100% false. For many diseases and disorders there is more than one method of treatment. For cancer, there is chemotherapy and radioation. Both work. Same thing for diabetes, if one method works, why not another?
Stem cell research can result in a cure for diabetes. The same thing can be true for Dr. Denise Faustman's treatment.
I'd have to say NYT either is biased against stem cell research or they just repeat another's bias.
I'm wondering who moderated you as "Insightful" when your comment proves nothing. Vioxx and Phen-Fen held promise of a huge return on investment during the period they were under development. Those two turned out to fail but a certain percentage of lucrative drugs are expected to fail. This puts them in a different class than drugs which from the very start can be ruled out as showing little promise of a return on investment at all- even though they may be needed to maintain public health.
There is a reason we have Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, and no flu vaccine.
Again... why capitalism and science doesn't mix.
...and the human race dies off because the bureaucrat couldn't make the buck... what a wonderful system.
Chemist/Pharmacist: Look! We found the cure for cancer, AIDS, and all forms of nerve injury!
Manager: Who cares? The patent's expired.... just throw it away...
I would like to suggest that this opinion of drug companies is, in some ways too generous; Its not their fault, its the economics and laws which we set up to drive pharmaceutical research and profits.
Similar outcomes different goals?: Illegal Drug dealers induce a dependency by pushing a prohibited substance, targeting any easy mark. Drug companies discover dependecies by hiring "researchers" to find substances which alleviate or "manage" pre-existing common diseases, targeting any sick person.
These "no-cure" drugs temporarily alleviate the symptoms of the diseases, and even extend the patients life (and thus profits), while, "unfortunately", rarely managing to fundamentally cure anything. When was a drug as useful as penicillin last discovered?
The really clever people are in marketing, its carefully created to spin the appearance of dedicated people attempting to find cures. I find that laughably naive, clearly the economic pressure precludes that from happening. However, I suspect many of the scientists and 'caring professionals' in the field prefer to believe that comfortable fallacy and self image.
To me this focus on researching pushable drugs, versus practical cures, is a natural outcome of allowing the humanitarian medical sciences to be solely driven by raw capitalism and simple greed.
The pharmaceutical companies, will grow wealthier, and the poignant marketing campaigns, and "real soon now cures", will be glossy, slick and convincing, for as long as the hypocrisy continues.
Note: Where there are funds for any cure oriented research, it will typically be in areas where there is a huge PR payback in company image and good will factors.
We, the public, are the addicts, we pay the taxes, fund the basic research, and then have to drink their coolaid and swallow the bitter and expensive pills, just so we can feel better... for a while.
IMHO, there is no cure for this chronic disease of legalized "no-cure" drug pushing, except by radical surgery on the NIH and our health research laws.
There is no god; get over it already! Never exchange a walk on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage.