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How Drug Companies Seek To Exploit Rare DNA Mutations

Posted by Soulskill on from the all-about-the-benjamins dept.

An anonymous reader writes: With so many people in the world, humanity can't help but generate a large amount of genetic outliers. Most random mutations are undetectable, and many of the rest lead to serious diseases. But there's another class of mutation that has drug companies salivating. For example: a few dozen people worldwide have a condition that prevents them from feeling any pain. Another condition called sclerosteosis affects less than 100 people, giving them incredibly dense bone structure. Both of these conditions have serious downsides, but drug companies are beginning to see the dollar signs behind isolating these mutations and making them safe.

"People with sclerosteosis lack a protein that acts as a brake on bone growth. Without that protein, bones grow abnormally thick. It stood to reason, researchers thought, that a drug that could block the protein in patients with osteoporosis would encourage bone regrowth. Amgen's scientists created hundreds of antibodies that they tested to determine which might be able to get in the way of the protein. It took them three and a half years of research before they were able to identify the best antibody to inhibit the protein. Then NASA came calling." It's an unfortunate situation for those with the rare conditions; there's a lot more potential profit in finding a way to genetically prevent pain for billions of people than it is to cure the handful with the condition.

5 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. "Drug Companies Seek to Exploit"!!! by mi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The title suggested some che-guevarish rant against capitalism in general and profits in particular. Profits made on the backs of people with genetic diseases, no less!

    I sure am glad, TFA is not about that at all. And, yes, I exploited my computer to post this.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:"Drug Companies Seek to Exploit"!!! by captaindomon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah my thoughts exactly. "Drug company realizes that an extremely debilitating rare disease may have a cure with modern science, so they are researching how to cure that." Doesn't sound like exploitation to me.

      --
      Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
    2. Re:"Drug Companies Seek to Exploit"!!! by Wycliffe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They also neglect to mention that the more studied the pathway the more likely a cure will be found. Maybe the drug, used to reproduce the genetic effects of the drug, needs an antidote that will work as a cure for current sufferers. If I had one of these diseases I would welcome this news because before it really was hopeless for a cure to try to treat a dozen people.

      Exactly. While they are trying to block a particular protein, it's very possible that they also figure out how to synthesize it. Or in the reverse case, while they are trying to sythesize it, they might figure out how to block it or they might even need to figure out how to block it in a mouse first so that they have a way to test if their drug is working. Before, with only a few dozen people on earth, noone on earth was even looking at that area so the chance of a cure was nil. This way the chance of a cure goes up exponentially. Not to mention that if you get a relationship with a scientist who is studying your disease that they will likely take a personal interest in your case and you're much more likely to get access to experimental procedures.

    3. Re:"Drug Companies Seek to Exploit"!!! by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is a very common claim, but I don't think it's true for a couple reasons.

      1. Drug patents eventually run out, so it's not as if they can profit from a "treatment solution" indefinitely as opposed to a "cure solution". Both solutions have a limited time during which they can be exploited for profit.

      2. Why couldn't drug companies simply just charge more money for a cure, to where it is the same amount of profit as a treatment? Insurance companies are probably even more likely to pay for cures rather than treatments because it is probably cheaper for them in the long term, and drug companies can make more money while their patents are still valid. The only party losing out is that drug companies making generics don;t have as much of an opportunity for profit.

      3. If a drug company A already has a treatment for a disease, you are saying drug company B could make a cure for the disease and steal all of A's profits, but they'd rather just make another treatment and share the profits equally with A and deny society as a whole a cure for this disease?

      Here is what I think is probably more likely to be the reality. Cures for diseases are harder to find than treatments. The easy cures for diseases have already been found.

      In order to cure a disease, you either have to be really lucky, or have an incredibly deep understanding of the disease in order to intentionally engineer a solution.

      I have a good friend who is a doctor (just went to his wedding), and he had a very good analogy in regard to the current way we treat diseases with drugs.

      He said it's like opening the hood of a car and taking whatever fluid is lacking and just pouring out over all the components and hoping enough of it gets in the places it needs to go.

  2. No cures? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Drug companies have no intrrest in researching cures.

    Drug companies are for-profit. While there is obviously immense profit in providing treatment for maladies, there is a very limited profit available in cures.

    Thus, drug companies do not have any intention of curing anything. It would be bad for business, you see.

    Care to explain the several recent drugs that cure Hepatitis C? http://www.webmd.com/hepatitis/features/cure

    Produced by for-profit drug companies. Kind of puts a hole in your "big pharma is da ebil" idea...