Cheap Cancer Drug Finally Tested In Humans

John Bayko writes "Mentioned on Slashdot a couple of years ago, the drug dichloroacetate (DCA) has finally finished its first clinical trial against brain tumors in humans. Drug companies weren't willing to test a drug they could not patent, so money was raised in the community through donations, auctions, and finally government support, but the study was still limited to five patients. It showed extremely positive results in four of them. This episode raises the question of what happens to all the money donated to Canadian and other cancer societies, and especially the billions spent buying merchandise with little pink ribbons on it, if not to actual cancer research like this."

Comments

Cure?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no money in a cure....

Re:Cure?

[Shadow of Eternity]

I hate to say it but I'm starting to agree with this. Why would any pharmaceutical company EVER want to actually cure something when they could hook people on treatments for life.

Especially if they can't patent it, or it's inexpensive.

Re:Cure?

[BitZtream]

Viagra is another example of treating the symptoms and not resolving the problem.

Thats what drug companies love the most, treating the symptoms only and not doing anything to resolve the actual problem.

There is no profit in cures, just treat the symptoms and make them dependent on you.

Re:Cure?

[0100010001010011]

My dad ha(s|d) cancer.

ONE chemo bag is $18k. I think he gets 3 per month until it goes into remission.

I guarantee you there is no way in hell he'd ever spend that much on Viagra or any other drug that someone could possibly use if he lived.

Re:Cure?

[interkin3tic]

There is no money in a cure....

Skepticism is always warranted with an industry as large, corrupt, but ultimately essential as the pharmaceutical industry. Still, that goes into paranoia. No money in a cure? Perhaps you missed the very last line of TFA

[glioblastoma patient] average survival is 14 to 16 months with standard treatments.

This is not a disease that the industry is making money off stringing along patients rather than curing them. There's no stringing along. You die of it. You never become a continuous customer for the drug company. Hospitals might make a lot of money from them, and I don't know the standard treatment. I'd guess it's more surgical and pallative care with glioblastoma.

The second to last line also speaks against the idea that the cure is being suppressed: a quote by some professional suggesting that the drug would extend the lives of these patients. Not cure, extend. If you were right and they just want people to hang on to suck up more treatment, they'd be aggressively testing this, possibly in combination with a drug they -can- patent and make a bunch of money off of.

Anyway, any given research team has a huge interest in a bona-fide cure for cancer. That would probably be the quickest awarded nobel prize right there. Even if you were working for a company that had a financial interest in not actually curing cancer and you'd get fired, you wouldn't sit on it.

Re:Cure?

[sjames]

Generic drug means very little profit (comparatively speaking). Patented drug is a lot of profit. Unless, of course, there is a safe and equally effective generic drug already out there. So, they would MUCH prefer no existing treatment while they try to cook up an expensive designer drug.

Re:Cure?

[camperdave]

their primary obligation is to the shareholders and not to the customers.

You know, I don't really understand this line of thinking. The customers are where the money comes in. Shareholders are, for the most part these days, automated trading computers and mutual funds. Shareholders come and go like the wind. Furthermore, every shareholder goes in with the understanding that there may not be a profit. If you treat your customers poorly just so you can show a profit to the shareholders, then you will lose your customers, your profit, and your shareholders. However, if your primary obligation is to the customer, then you will generate more profit, and please the shareholders.

Re:Cure?

[geekoid]

FALSE.

Lets look at this, shall we?
A cure boost stock prices, hurts you competitors, and gets C*Os a ton of cash in the form of bonuses. i.e. get stinking rich.

Unless top management is so kind hearted that want to be sure revenue is around for there predecessor and other companies your statement make no sense.

Re:Cure?

[westlake]

I guarantee you there is no way in hell he'd ever spend that much on Viagra or any other drug that someone could possibly use if he lived

Your Dad perhaps not.

The kid diagnosed with cancer at age ten who survives into his mid-eighties? That's a much tougher question to answer.

What would you be willing to pay over twenty-five years, fifty years, for a greatly extended, vigorous and productive, old age free of cancer, heart disease and stroke, arthritis, diabeties, Alzheimer's, COPD...? $20K, $50K, $100K? More?

Re:Cure?

[shellster_dude]

Generic drug means very little profit (comparatively speaking). Patented drug is a lot of profit. Unless, of course, there is a safe and equally effective generic drug already out there. So, they would MUCH prefer no existing treatment while they try to cook up an expensive designer drug.

While there is much truth in your statement, you must take into consideration the enormous risk and cost of bringing a new drug to market. So in some ways, generic drugs still make a lot of profit because there is virtually no risk or overhead in the process.

Re:Cure?

[CheshireCatCO]

Some (publicly-funded) research found that ulcers were actually caused by bacteria not stomach acid, and could be cured with an extremely cheap course of ant-biotics. The drug companies had done some basic research on this and did not publish. There was more than half a decade when drug companies knew that cheap antibiotics could cure ulcers but did nothing about it. It finally took government-funded researchers to publish and within half a year, the anti-ulcer drugs fell off the top ten, and even the top 100 of prescribed drugs.

Not that I really doubt your point that corporations don't really care about costumers, but I have to ask: source? This is a fairly egregious example of lying by omission and before I repeat it, I want a solid source.

Re:Cure?

[Martin Blank]

A friend works in a urology clinic. Based on her descriptions of how priapism is handled, Woodbegone could be a significant seller. (Hint: treatment for aggressive priapism involves the erection and one or two needles. It's done under local anesthetic, but still...)

Re:Cure?

[Naturalis Philosopho]

there is virtually no risk or overhead in the process

Except for the fact that we're discussing an unproven drug. If a drug company goes to the expense of proving something that's already a generic, then their competitors can produce it right away without having had the cost of running the trials. That doesn't make sense from a business/competitiveness standpoint. Nor was there a guarantee that this trial was going to pan out resulting in any usable drug at all, even a lower-profit one. Don't underestimate the gobs of money that are made on patentable drugs. It may be a crap shoot for the company to test a patentable drug, but the payoff of the few good bets really does pay off the bad ones and leave enough left over for some nice executive houses and company jets.

Re:Cure?

[The Hatchet]

Sure, there is money in a cure, but no drug company that can come up with a therapy will dare make a cure. And the economics behind it is simple. First of all, a corporation is driven by stockholders, whom the very vast majority of only care about profit (or at least all those that matter to the decision making). The more profit, the better. Every last cent you can squeeze out of each customer ends up in the bank account of a shareholder, and because they make the decisions, so it is. If a drug company creates a therapy or treatment, they can string people on for millions and do basically nothing at all. If they develop a cure, then an illness is just something which we can move forward from, and they either make much less, or get called out big time on unjustified costs to dying, desperate consumers. Therapies make you appear to care, but overcharging for cures makes you look sick. If you make a cure, you lose the potential to make a lot more money, and in economic terms, that is as good as losing money from your bank account. Sure it is terrible, sick and wrong, but that is how modern business works. It needs to be changed, because it is harming every business from our health, to our food, to our electronics and entertainment. Everything you buy, 99.99% of what you pay ends up in the financial sector, or the top brass of involved companies wallet. Imagine the 50's quality of life, and value of a dollar compared to wages. Now imagine 60 years of technological advancement making everything you bought cheaper to make and cheaper to own, while making more money yourself. We should be living like kings, not struggling like hell to get by.

Also, a few hundred/thousand bucks towards drugs like viagra will never add up the the tens of thousands to millions that those companies can make off of every single cancer patient. Hell, if they could give more people cancer they would be rolling in it, until the day the costs overwhelm yet another system and the financial sector gets another flat and the world gets another recession for it. This kind of half-assed logic and denial based on weak reasoning of something researched a while ago is pathetic. Sure, if you had actually thought about it, you might has something useful to say, but crappy statements like this just slowly divide a populace based on half assed ideas. Try fully engaging in thought before commenting, or at least more than you did here.

Re:Cure?

[sqldr]

There is no money in a cure....

That depends if you're trying to make money, or save money and more importantly fulfill your mandate to save lives, and this all depends on whether you're a drugs company or a national health service

This came up a couple of years ago in the UK when an American drugs company came up with a treatment (can't remember the name) for various types of cancers which had a 20% chance of prolonging the life or a patient for between 6 and 18 month for the paltry sum of £50000/year per patient, not to mention the rather unpleasant side-effects. They were denied the treatment on the NHS (except nobody was stopping them buying it privately except personal wealth, or digging into the inheritance funds).

The documentary cut to footage of crying relatives angrily talking about how their children missed out on another year of being able to see their grandparent because the NHS which they had paid for through national insurance all of their lives had denied them this drug ("if they'd just had the XYZ then they could have seen them for longer!"), etc.

It then cuts to an NHS funds manager talking about budget and how they have the highest level of pregnancy deaths in the country and the treatment for many of those incidents which could save the entire life of a child is much cheaper. The NHS budget is calculated according to its effect on quality of life, scored as "QUALS". These guys are the ones whom Sarah Palin refers to as the "death squads". Could have been worse.. under a private healthcare scheme, the insurance company death squads would probably have let the babies die for the sake of the 6 months of a bed-bound terminal cancer patient.

It then cuts to the manufacturers of this drug, in their massive marble-sided Chicago skyscraper, having a massive champagne-fueled banquet, handing out awards to eachother for their "life-saving" work in creating this rather ineffectual drug.

One might wonder what the first family would have thought if the reason for their children not seeing their grandparent was because it was the CHILDREN who were ill, who couldn't get treatment because the NHS had just spaffed £50000 on a drug which just made someone ill for an extra 6 months. And what about the 70 year old who is going to live for another 15 years and would love to spend those 15 years being able to walk properly after receiving an expensive hip-replacement operation? Nah.. cancer is like the poster boy of illnesses. The old "why aren't you curing cancer?" poke at the ignoble awards is getting tiresome.

So from where I stand, I've not got cancer, or MS, or Parkinsons (dementia is VERY badly funded.. all the charity money goes to breast cancer these days), or anything else.. YET, but I'm hedging my bets by saying that I hope that my national insurance money is going towards what is most likely to save me the most grief, rather than paying for more champagne and marble skyscrapers. In that respect, a CHEAP cure for cancer sounds bloody brilliant, and I hope the NHS invest heavily in it. In the long run, that will free up more money to research all the other horrible diseases we might get.

There is huge incentive for the NHS to invest in cheap drugs, because that's their job. Private healthcare doesn't really have this moral obligation.

Re:Cure?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also note that this is the "Australian Government" your talking about - as viewed by a lot of Americans as a horrible place to live because they have "Socialist" medicine - like a lot of the developed world. Thats right... the government will cover your hospital costs if you get sick and dont have private healthcare... it must be terrible to have the "government" involved in your healthcare... bloody commies...

Where else

[Anonymous Coward]

It does to administration and hosting all those ridiculous charity events.

Re:Where else

[eln]

A lot of the big charities these days seem to be focused on "awareness" rather than "finding a cure". This basically sounds like giving money to these people so they can run more ads to get more money. At what point do we decide people are "aware" enough and start actually trying to cure these diseases? I don't care how many people are aware of breast cancer, I care how fast it takes to come up with a cure for breast cancer.

The big offenders I've seen are breast cancer awareness and autism awareness. Why do we need to give money to make people more aware of these conditions? Everyone is already as aware as they need to be! Stop spending money on awareness and start spending it on research!

Of course, once a charity reaches a certain size, its primary goal becomes self-preservation, and finding a cure for these things would threaten that goal.

Re:Where else

[BobMcD]

The big offenders I've seen are breast cancer awareness and autism awareness. Why do we need to give money to make people more aware of these conditions? Everyone is already as aware as they need to be! Stop spending money on awareness and start spending it on research!

I can't speak for breast cancer, but my youngest son is autistic. Lack of awareness leads people to assume he's retarded, or a brat, or both. My nephew has Downs and I frequently envy his parents on the simple fact that they don't really need to spend a lot of time explaining how their child is different. My own son gets a mixed result of surprise and disgust when he doesn't live up to the standards his appearance would dictate.

Thankfully he's not really all that aware of how people treat him...

But awareness isn't all bad...

Re:Where else

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is correct: I've got a "retarded" (learning/developmental disorder) child and there's nothing more frustrating than meeting a parent whose kid has a different disability coming out with the equivalent of "at least my kid's not a retard".

Where the money goes

[BitZtream]

Most of the time it goes to organizations the give out grants to companies to do the research and testing. Unfortunately what happens is it gets given out to Glaxo and the like, which then uses the money to research and test ... and patent what they come up with.

Some of the money goes to universities who research it, patent it, and sell it to drug companies so they can raise their own salaries.

This would be all fine and dandy if the drug companies gave back.

They do give back, but they don't give back anything like they get. They give back just enough to say 'we give back' in little strategic bits that make for good publicity.

Re:Where the money goes

[ducomputergeek]

More like curing cancer would put the charities out of business. It's like the March of Dimes. They're goal was to wipe out Polio. When that happen, they didn't exactly fold the tents and go home.

Re:Where the money goes

[BitZtream]

It would also put the drug companies produce the cure in a really crappy spot.

This is why medical research should be publicly funded and public property.

Re:Where the money goes

[aminorex]

Very simple: Apply penalties for crimes. Apply the death penalty liberally, where death is understood to mean a revokation of the corporate charter, and the return of funds to shareholders after outstanding liabilities are acquitted.

The problem with corporations is not so much that they are treated as persons, but that they are treated as persons who are above the law. As a society, we fear the creative destruction which is actually beneficial to all.

Re:but... but...

[yuriyg]

I'll take free market fairies over government bureaucrats anytime.

Re:but... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh.. what? The pharmaceuticals don't do something, it happens anyway through the action of other parties, and this is not a free market response?

Re:Penn and Teller talked about this on "Bullsh*t"

[Thelasko]

Money spent on e.g. breast cancer awareness goes towards raising awareness of breast cancer

Except some of those charities explicitly say, "For the Cure." If they are spending the money on awareness and not finding a cure, that is flagrant false advertising.

Re:For answers to the question --

[geekoid]

How about you read something that isn't full of lies?

Fuck. I can't beliecve a thinking person would actually reference that piece of shit.

Why don't yuo include a reference of his book on the federal reserve and his views on Jews to get the full trifecta of crap?

Re:Viagara is an indicator for CAD

[moosesocks]

Coincidentally, this is the same exact disease that Viagra was designed to treat.

It wasn't designed to treat ED -- it just turned out to have one really noticeable side-effect. It also wasn't expected to be the blockbuster that it is, as estimates for the prevalence of ED at the time were way off, as few men were willing to admit to having it, while no practical treatment options existed.

(There's also a growing body of work suggesting that men who have sex frequently are less likely to get prostate cancer, so there's that... )

So... yeah. Shame on them for accidentally creating a successful product.

Re:sfhxsfghdfjfd

[fractoid]

I'd just like to thank Timothy for correctly saying "raises the question", rather than misusing "begs the question", in the summary.

Writing prescriptions for profit does not happen

[Neuticle]

Goddamnitsomuch, I hate this meme... You're either a troll or supremely ignorant.

Doctors don't make ANY money from writing prescriptions. They never have, aside from the days of yore when doctors personally purchased the ingredients to mix up and sell*. Even then, it wasn't long before chemists/pharmacists took that over.

They can bill for exams, tests and procedures, but in the USA, Canada, UK and (AFAIK) all of Europe, they don't get anything for writing a prescription. NOTHING. They don't even get to bill for the paper it is written on (which has security features and can be surprisingly expensive).

There have been some rare (and I mean rare) cases of kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies to doctors. The only examples I know about are for chemotherapy drugs costing thousands of dollars per dose, e.g. an oncologist getting money for putting all his patients on drug A over competitor's drug B, which wasn't necessarily cheaper or more effective. The people involved were caught fairly quickly and punished severely.

This only happened because the base cost of the drug was very high (many chemo drugs are wickedly hard to make), the markup is high (to recoup massive development costs), AND the market is small (Only oncologists treating a specific subset of cancer patients, possibly only a few thousand people). The profit of a handful of additional sales was enough to tempt people into breaking the law. The odds of this happening with mass market drugs are practically nil. No doctor is going to take that kind of personal risk unless there is significant money involved, and a company is not likely to spend that money and take a huge legal risk to drive sales of XYZ antibiotic up from 500,000/year to 500,100/year.

Seriously, this meme needs to die. As for getting gifts and other non-money compensation, in the USA, drug companies aren't even giving out free pens and post-its anymore, and that wasn't done based on number of prescriptions written anyhow.

*Snake-oil salesman were/are sometimes doctors, and thus could have "prescribed" something to the scam victim, but it's not a traditional doctor/patient relationship.