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Cancer Drug May Not Get A Chance Due to Lack of Patent
theshowmecanuck writes to mention that in a recent study, researchers at the University of Alberta Department of Medicine have shown that an existing small, relatively non-toxic molecule, dichloroacetate (DCA), causes regression in several different cancers. From the article: "But there's a catch: the drug isn't patented, and pharmaceutical companies may not be interested in funding further research if the treatment won't make them a profit. In findings that 'astounded' the researchers, the molecule known as DCA was shown to shrink lung, breast and brain tumors in both animal and human tissue experiments."
Cancer Drug May Not Get A Chance Due to Lack of Patent
Note the word "may".
But because it's not patented or owned by any drug firm, it would be an inexpensive drug to administer. And researchers may have a difficult time finding money for further research.
Speculation.
Dr. Dario Altieri, of the University of Massachusetts, said the drug is exactly what doctors need because it could limit side-effects for patients. But there are "market considerations" that drug companies would have to take into account.
Buesiness fact.
Michelakis remains hopeful he will be able to secure funding for further research.
As anybody would.
"We hope we can attract the interest of universities here in Canada and in the United States," said Michelakis.
Excellent.
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The only news here is the drug itself and how things are moving along well. Yet, a speculation is reported as the main factor, when there is no supporting information for it. Did they even ask for funding yet? The researchers are taking the market into consideration, and the reporter seems to want to make a big deal out of it.
Even if the pharmaceutical companies do turn it down, and even if they do turn it down on the basis of no profit, it just means that the researches will have to do more presentation to find funding. If there is obvious promise in this (which there's have to be to get a pharmaceutical company to invest loads of cash) some organization, or college, or government grant will help pay for the studies.
Have you read my journal today?
If this really works, anyone who goes through the effort needed to conduct FDA trials and bring the drug to market will immediately face competition from generic drug makers who've invested very little in bringing their product to market. If it were patented, then it would become profitable to spend the money to show that it really does work. Otherwise, the company doing the leg work won't have the leg up on their competition.
The "big" thing about the Losec medication wasn't really the drug itself, but the way it was delivered to the body iirc. And although AstraZeneca eventually 'lost' the patent (ok, it expired) on the active substance, a lot of other patents regarding the drug delivery were still in place, making them tons of cash.
So I do believe this is just a scare from the pro patent lobby. I'm sure there are a lot of companies working on this right now to see if it's possible to make a useful drug out of it. Even if the drug itself can't be patented there's probably a whole lot to be learned from it, possibly to be used in other drugs that can be patented.
I wouldn't worry. If it does cure cancer, we'll get the drug eventually.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
When the free market fails, as in this case, why not let government do it? Most major scientific breakthroughs have come from government funding.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Re:Am I missing something?
Yes.
It's not that people wouldn't pay; it's that without a patent, there's no protection for the manufacturer. Company A pays for the R&D on the drug, and then they go through years of clinical trials to clear the regulatory agencies. This costs $100mm to $1bln for most drugs. If there's no patent protection, Companies B through H can produce generic equivalents, prove equivalency to the regulators (at a cost of a few 10s of millions), and then undercut company A on price.
In the short run this appears to benefit the consumer. In reality however, Company A is too smart to give a free ride to their competitors. The drug never gets developed and more people die.
We don't *know* for sure yet that it really works. We don't know for sure that it may not have some bizarre side-effect in some patients. Answering those questions to the degree of certainty that will convince the FDA to let any US doctor start prescribing it to patients will take huge amounts of time and money. And once one company has expended that effort, *anyone* can sell the drug--and all the companies that didn't fund the testing will have the advantage that they don't need to set a price that will recoup the investment in testing.
So the market will penalize the company that actually does most of the work needed to bring the product to market. As a result, no company will do that work.
That's the problem that patents on pharmaceuticals are intended to fix, really: they fund the testing required to establish to the government's satisfaction that the drug is safe and effective, by giving a temporary monopoly to a single company, as an incentive for that company to invest in the testing.
We think of patents as existing to reward that "ah-ha" moment of insight that produces an original idea. But often such insights are cheap, and occur to multiple people simultaneously. What we really need the patent monopoly for is to encourage the research required to bring a product to market, whenever that research is something that, once done, any competitor could use for free.
So yeah, there's no financial incentive. So what about in other countries? Will it get developed and tested elsewhere? And if successfully tested, will it become legal in the U.S.?
What we're talking about is the essential blocking of just one path by which a drug gets to patients. Is there only one path? And if there's only one path, *THEN* we have a serious problem where the industry is truly getting in the way of a better existance for humanity.
I *STILL* have cancer to this day because of the bullcrap like this.
IMHO as a cancer patient, the reason why there's no 'cure' to different types of diseases (including diabetes) is because the pharmaceutical companies make billions of dollars a year keeping us sick. If there was a cure, there goes their profits.
I would like to see a law passed that says that if a cure if found and not distributed within a viable time frame to the general public (lets say 10 years), the company can be charged with genocide.
Will it happen? Hell no. There's too many people in power in Washington who owns stocks in these companies.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage many vary...
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
How in the world is this insightful? You are recommending to people who have no clue what the consequences of just going out and taking some medication might be to give it a whirl since it isn't a controlled substance. Regardless of how we would all love to find out that you could just go to the grocery and grab a bottle of "No More Cancer," suggesting that people experiment on themselves is NOT a reasonable suggestion. Science is not the culmination of anecdotal evidence, just because it worked for someone does not mean it will work for you nor that what you think happened is actually what happened (e.g. just because you no longer have cancer after giving it a try doesn't mean that it was what caused the remission) Giving out advice as you have should be done with great care which you have not displayed.
The problem is the reliance on profit motive for development of new drugs. The need to patent drugs is simply a way to counteract this.
Fortunately, countries like Canada are willing to spend money to develop drugs that everyone can benefit from.
Well, if this is the case, why can a US institute like NIH, which I think gets a bit of govt. research funding, conduct the trials for drugs that are not patentable, but, might be of benefit to humans...and if it passes...then all drug companies are free to manufacture them?
If this couldn't be done, then possibly the govt. needs to set up a system for testing drugs that the drug companies won't/can't push through due to the cost with no patent protections.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The people are willing, but our governments are not.
I have long argued that the drug companies should be sidelined in favour of public money ( and lots of it ) being invested into medical research, with the benefits enjoyed by all. The problem is that the pharmecutical industry is incredibly powerful ( and rich ), and prevent our governments from performing any public research, insisting that the 'market will provide'. This story points out the bullshit level in this case. The market does not provide anything for society other than those things which make the most profits for market players. If we want the best possible medical technology, and for it to be accessible by all people and not just those with the cash, then we need to have massive public investment, and also consider specifically excluding medical technology from patent law.
Actually, you are overstating the work which the drug companies engage in. Most of the research is done in academia, under federal funding. But not quite enough to quality a drug for FDA approval. Then some drug company buys the rights to something that it considers promissing, after most of the risk is gone. It then runs the final trials, etc., and gets the patents.
Is it any wonder that the drug companies have such remarkable profits.
Personally I feel that the solution here is to forbid exclusive or discriminatory licensing of research developed with federal money. This would probably mean that research trials would need to be carried further (i.e., more up front investment), but it would prevent the monopoly pricing that is currently the rule. (If you don't think my scenario is common, then what I'm proposing wouldn't very often change anything.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If any government-funded entity did this, the patent-funded corporations would scream "unfair competition!" and send their hordes of patent-funded lawyers and lobbyists to get them shut down.
Big money defends itself.