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."

Comments

Re:We see true motivation of the big "IP" players

[dtfinch]

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.

Re:We see true motivation of the big "IP" players

[Deanasc]

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.