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Why New Antibiotics Never Come To Market (vice.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-enough-vespene-gas dept.

citadrianne writes: New antibiotics are generated naturally over time by bacteria, as weapons in their ongoing chemical warfare against other microbes. Predicting where and when they can be found relies mostly on good fortune and following a hunch. Scientist Brian Murphy's hunch is that the bacteria which live on freshwater sponges could be a hive of new chemicals. "We don’t know a huge amount about these species," he said. "But the only way to find out if there’s anything there is by actually diving down there and carving them off with a knife." But even if these sponges yield the antibiotics of the future, there are seemingly endless roadblocks that prevent us from actually using them to cure disease. "We've discovered six antibiotics in the recent past," Professor William Fenical said. "Of those, three to four have serious potential as far as we know, including anthramycin. But we have no way to develop them. There are no companies in the United States that care. They're happy to sell existing antibiotics, but they're not interested in researching and developing new ones."

51 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. You must choose.... by JoeMerchant · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You have billions of dollars, and a business that makes billions more per year.

    Do you choose to continue that business and rake in personal rewards like a G5 and an island to fly it to, or do you invest the billions on a risky venture that might pay off some time in the next 10 to 15 years?

    Answer from the perspective of a 60 year old with multiple cancers.

    1. Re:You must choose.... by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is what happens when you allow sociopaths to run corporations. Sociopaths should, upon discovery, be forceably removed from society at gunpoint and sent to an island together where they can fuck each other, eat each other, or whatever it is these vile neurologically inhuman monsters do to each other. No sociopath should ever have control of even a single normal, empathic human being in even the tiniest way.,

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:You must choose.... by quantaman · · Score: 5, Funny

      This is what happens when you allow sociopaths to run corporations. Sociopaths should, upon discovery, be forceably removed from society at gunpoint and sent to an island together where they can fuck each other, eat each other, or whatever it is these vile neurologically inhuman monsters do to each other. No sociopath should ever have control of even a single normal, empathic human being in even the tiniest way.,

      That's a very sociopathic approach to the problem.

      Sociopaths are human beings who have what could be considered in a mental illness, in some settings they can be quite dangerous and harmful, in others their illness can even be an asset.

      --
      I stole this Sig
    3. Re:You must choose.... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Leaving out the Strum Und Drang for a moment, lets look the TFA. You have this interesting character that runs around and looks for novel biologics. This isn't really breaking new ground - there are thousands of people out in various biomes doing exactly that. Seems like our good prospector has had some success taking a few chemicals and doing some basic research on them with potentially useful results. Kinda neat way to make a living actually.

      The article gets more than a little squishy when it talks about the End of the Antibiotic World As We Know It and makes it sound like we're all going to die in a septic heap because of the transgressions of our society. While there is some validity to the 'superbug' hypothesis, it really is only an edge problem. Some people die of multidrug resistant infections, but not many. The antibiotics we have work pretty well.

      So, from an economic standpoint, Big Pharma has a point. It costs one hell of a lot of money to take a random, complex molecule and try to make an economic product out of it. Remember, it's pretty easy to get a molecule to destroy a bacterium - Chlorox works great and is rather inexpensive. It's just hard to get a molecule that targets ONLY a bacterium (or cancer cell) and leaves the rest of the organism alone. So this guy has his work cut out for him and has a lot of competition in other "bioprospectors". His business plan is not in it for the long run of taking a molecule from the field to the syringe - he wants to go back out into the field and get more critters to play with. He wants somebody else to do the real grunt work.

      Yep, the system could work better but it sounds like this guy needs to start writing a few NSF grants.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    4. Re:You must choose.... by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Reading comprehension isn't your strong point.

      "...little funding is available from the public sector.

      Twenty-five years ago, the urgent need to find treatments for HIV became a politically charged battleground. Faced with intense pressure to deliver results, the US National Institute of Infectious Diseases became a center entirely dedicated to virology. This remains the case today, but there are now no national programs aimed at tackling drug-resistant bacteria."

    5. Re: You must choose.... by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 2

      This.

      If GP really wants to outcast people whose only crime is being born with a brain wired in a way that he doesn't like, then perhaps he should move to his own island and appoint himself the Chief of Thought Police.

      Anyways, the reason nobody works on these is probably because our existing antibiotics already work really well, likewise it wouldn't be terribly practical to develop more.

      I think money and time would be much better spent developing antiviral, antifungal, and anticancer drugs, because all of those could target things that impact us much worse right now, such as valley fever or hepatitis c.

    6. Re:You must choose.... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      Yes, the HIV scare did run up a lot of money for what is a relatively small problem, but the entire biomedical funding system in the US is at risk for this sort of 'disease of the year' problem. Sure, if we decided to pour a big enough pile of money in this guy's way we would make some progress but this isnt the only field of science that could use more money.

      And it's not quite true that the ID institute 'just' funded virology. A lot of scientists shut their mouths and started pounding on typewriters (remember, this started in the '80's) because this was essentially basic research. It's not clear that it led to treatments for HIV any faster than a less intense program but it did spin off a number of important, basic research topics. There was a fair amount of money in bacteriologic and basic eukaryote biology as well.

      In the long run, less political manipulation of scientific goals and more robust, long term funding would help many fields of science but that's another rant.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    7. Re:You must choose.... by gtall · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Roughly 25 years ago, I did work on a system that went to a major drug company. I learned that at that time, it cost roughly $1 billion to get a new drug to market. Of the hundreds of candidates that they would start testing, only 1 or 2 would have the right properties of not killing the patient, not having horrible side effects, etc. And the documentation required by the regulators would fill several semis, because it isn't enough to prove to yourselves that you have a wonder drug, you must prove it to the regulators. This is to prevent Joe's Bait and Pharmacology Shop from putting snake oil on the market. Once on the market, your drug must compete against others. And if those others are in their generic phase, you can express pricing pressure as well.

      Then the market for the drug must be assessed. In the case of antibiotics, there are many of them out there, many in generics, so bringing a new one on the market is destined to not sell well...at least as long as too many people aren't dying from super-bugs.

      This is a prime area for government research and development. The conservatives and libertarians will whine about the fed. gov. getting into the drug business. However, this is what we expect our government to do, i.e., make up for the shortfalls of private industry. The way I look at it, private industry has a big tote board. When frequency of deaths due to super-bugs rise above a certain level, they'll move. Until then, the conservatives and libertarians will gladly attend your funeral...just kidding, they don't give a flying rat's ass about you.

    8. Re:You must choose.... by khallow · · Score: 2

      Antibiotics are strictly a money loser due to the regulations about testing. The business spends tens of millions of dollars on a roll of the dice and all they'll get out of it is a rarely used, low revenue antibiotic. You can't even begin to understand the problem until you understand the disincentives.

    9. Re:You must choose.... by TVDinner · · Score: 5, Informative

      I worked in the pharma industry for a bit so let's look at some numbers:

      Pharma business is split into 3 basic areas: Discovery, Development, Commercial.

      Discovery: 10k molecules are examined to get to 250 that look promising and down to about 5 to get sent into development. This takes about 5 years. Costs vary wildly. Key concept (among many) here is molecules get thinned down usually because they don't work or aren't safe (Chlorox), but sometimes you just can't manufacture it even if you wanted to make it.

      Development: Those 5 are then put through Development which is composed of pre-clincals (tissues and at least 2 species of animals), phase 1, 2a, 2b and 3 trials (human). The patent on the molecule is done early in this process and is good for 20 years. Development lasts about 9 years and costs around US$800m. Key concept here (again out of many) is molecules get dropped off here due to their ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion) properties. If you can't deliver the molecule to where it needs to go, it won't work as a drug.

      Commercial: Out of Development, there is only about 1 molecule that becomes a drug. You've now spent upwards of US$1b including the cost of failures. The new drug has a patent for around 12 years or so (remember you patented it early in the Development phase). If you don't make that $1b back somehow, you won't be in business very long to develop other drugs. You now have cost of manufacture. This is usually pretty small for small molecule drugs that can be put into a pill, but can be expensive for large molecule (biologic) drugs that are intravenous (think insulin). You also have to collect data and send it to regulatory bodies (phase 4).

      So this guy has found a few molecules (one that is hard to get any kind of quantity of from TFA) that are part of the 10k funnel at the beginning of the process. Could be that companies have other compounds that they are exploring that are further in the process. They may be seeing if those fail before starting to look at his. Super-bugs aren't new so companies may have been looking at them already (5 yr Discovery funnel).

      And before anyone goes whining about Big Phara, think what you would do if you spent a billion dollars on developing ONE item and had tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of employees that you would like to keep around. How would you decide WHAT to develop and HOW to price it?

    10. Re:You must choose.... by the+gnat · · Score: 3, Informative

      I only whine when the Feds do all the work, on our dime, yet we end up with a drug company getting all the profits.

      This is rarely the case - only 25% of new drugs originate in (presumably federally-funded) academic labs, and even those have to go through a lengthy development process mostly paid for by companies.

    11. Re:You must choose.... by the+gnat · · Score: 2

      But instead they spend money at cheap, incremental development

      Except they don't. Big Pharma has sunk billions of dollars into developing drugs for Alzheimer's, which currently has no truly effective treatments, meaning they have to start from scratch. The failure rate is simply abysmal, so of course we're not seeing those drugs, but it's not for lack of effort.

    12. Re:You must choose.... by LoyalOpposition · · Score: 2

      Answer from the perspective of a 60 year old with multiple cancers.

      "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." Greek Proverb

      ~Loyal

      --
      I aim to misbehave.
    13. Re:You must choose.... by david_thornley · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It comes under taxing and spending for the general welfare.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  2. Sounds like an argument for government research by Lendrick · · Score: 2

    The dwindling effectiveness of antibiotics is a public safety issue. No big company is going to want to take the hit and invest millions of dollars into developing new antibiotics when the return is likely to be a long way off and isn't guaranteed at all. For things like this, it makes sense to use tax money to fund research and then contract companies to develop medicines (or, god forbid, just build some government facilities to develop and produce them there).

    1. Re:Sounds like an argument for government research by bhagwad · · Score: 2

      I would think this is an obvious approach. Of course this is a public issue - and one that is extremely unprofitable for private corporations to tackle. But I don't understand - is the average American opposed to government funded research into antibiotics? If so, why?

  3. Of course not by khelms · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The pharmaceutical companies aren't interested in developing inexpensive drugs you take a few times and then are done with. They want to develop something you have to take for the rest of your life to treat a chronic condition and charge as much as they can get away with. That's why both new antibiotics and new vaccines are seldom developed.

    Americans pay far more for their prescription drugs than the rest of the world and the excuse is that we're funding "innovation". Most of the innovation going on seems to be coming up with slight variations of existing drugs in order to extend the copyright and doing their best to delay a generic version of a drug from being marketed.

    Even when a generic version of a drug appears, greed is often in play. Just a month or two again, this was in the news "The rights to Daraprim were purchased in August by a new company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, which promptly increased the price from $13.50 per tablet to $750 per tablet -- a 5,000 percent jump -- the New York Times reported."

    1. Re:Of course not by JoeMerchant · · Score: 3, Informative

      I've seen plenty of new vaccines developed, the one that comes to mind at the moment is HPV - in 2000, HPV was just a nuisance that women got regular pap smears for, then cervical resurfacing when they came up positive with "precancerous lesions." We asked "What about HPV testing" when presented with a "just cut a loop around the cervix, it might mean you won't be able to carry a child to term, but it will prevent cancer" diagnosis in 2000, and were told "oh, that's all theoretical stuff, you can get tested, but at the end of the day, we need to take out the precancerous stuff to be sure..."

      Fast forward to 2005 and there's a new "HPV vaccine" legally required to be administered to all Texas schoolgirls virtually on the day it was cleared for use by the FDA. Tell me there's no profit in a vaccine that state Governors push laws through to require for school attendance.

    2. Re:Of course not by acoustix · · Score: 2

      Even when a generic version of a drug appears, greed is often in play. Just a month or two again, this was in the news "The rights to Daraprim were purchased in August by a new company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, which promptly increased the price from $13.50 per tablet to $750 per tablet -- a 5,000 percent jump -- the New York Times reported."

      Followed by another company that is selling the pill for less than a dollar per pill. But that's not as sensational, is it?
      http://science.slashdot.org/story/15/10/25/1420259/drug-firm-offers-1-version-of-750-daraprim-pill

      --
      "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
    3. Re:Of course not by khelms · · Score: 2

      I was referring to antibiotics as "a drug you take a few times and then are done with" and not to "miracle cures". When it comes to bacterial infections, an antibiotic (if it works) really is something that eradicates all traces of an ailment.

    4. Re:Of course not by khelms · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, no. Most, or at least many, other governments around the world regulate the prices of drugs.

    5. Re:Of course not by DRJlaw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fast forward to 2005 and there's a new "HPV vaccine" legally required to be administered to all Texas schoolgirls virtually on the day it was cleared for use by the FDA. Tell me there's no profit in a vaccine that state Governors push laws through to require for school attendance.

      Except "2005" was actually February 2007, "legally required" was an executive order issued by then-Governor Rick Perry ("individual liberty-R-us"), and the Texas legislature promptly overrode the executive order in June 2007 so that there never was any "legally required" vaccination for school attendance.

      Moderated to +4 informative, yet almost completely wrong on the objectively veribiable information. I think I'll disregard your HPV treatment anecdote as well...

    6. Re:Of course not by labnet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And the HPV vaccine came from Australian public reseach dollars, $$$$ pharma.

      --
      46137
    7. Re:Of course not by labnet · · Score: 2

      Meant to type and NOT $$$$ pharma. In 2015 /. Still can't do editing.

      --
      46137
  4. This is why.. by bravecanadian · · Score: 3

    basic/pure research is done through government funding of some form.

    Much to the chagrin of the free market zealots.

    Drug companies spend more on marketing than they do on R&D.

    1. Re:This is why.. by khelms · · Score: 2

      Exactly. Something like 50% of new drugs are developed by research at universities - funded by our tax dollars - and they turn around and sell the rights to a pharma company who then charges us a high price for that drug that we already subsidized the development of.

    2. Re:This is why.. by bravecanadian · · Score: 2

      Exactly. Something like 50% of new drugs are developed by research at universities - funded by our tax dollars - and they turn around and sell the rights to a pharma company who then charges us a high price for that drug that we already subsidized the development of.

      I've read about this happening and there should be more control over the rights to the results of public research.

      I know the argument always given is that someone has to produce the actual products of the research and the pharma company is already equipped to do so.. but the margins on those products should certainly be very limited for the public good.

    3. Re:This is why.. by khelms · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Pharma has to fund the clinical trials and going through the lengthy approval process, so they obviously deserve some profits from their efforts. Just don't jack the price into the stratosphere and tell us it's because of the cost of your research when you didn't come up with the drug in the first place.

  5. I talked to a doctor about this one by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I talked to a doctor about new antibiotics. The problem is you won't make your money back from them. A company has to go through all the trials to prove that the new antibiotic is safe, and than enough people need to buy them to make it worth it. In the case of antibiotics, there are so many already on the market that doctors won't use the new antibiotic, they'll just use existing ones.

    Note this only applies to antibiotics......if there were a drug curing malaria or AIDS, it would be a different story.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  6. Patents are not working by Iamthecheese · · Score: 2

    When patents fail to encourage innovation they need to be changed. Overly long IP rights terms on just about everything is harming American innovation in just about every way possible.

    --
    If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
  7. Re:New = Outlandishly Expensive by Pascoea · · Score: 2

    thanks to our government and the nightmares they make companies endure to get to that point

    As opposed to letting them put out whatever shit they think they can get away with? That doesn't exactly sound like a good idea either.

  8. Re:And the rest of the world? by blue9steel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And is the rest of the world the same? It is bigger than the United States, y'know.

    Sure, there is plenty of other land mass but they are either over-regulated, poor, or have low quality research infrastructures. The majority of all new drugs come out of research from the United States and that trend has only increased over the last forty years. That doesn't mean everything is happy days here, excessive market consolidation has reduced the number of new substances produced by more than 60%.

  9. Slanted PoV by laughingskeptic · · Score: 2

    The article complains that "Despite their best attempts, they were unable to collect enough species (Diazona angulata) to obtain sufficient amounts of the precious chemical.". However this article omits a significant detail: a biologically active analog of diazonamide A was synthesized in 2003 AND he is listed as one of the authors. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu....

  10. Patent terms by duckintheface · · Score: 2

    The reason it is so profitable for companies to continue to sell old antibiotics is that the research and marketing is largely done. It' s pure profit with no additional investment. And there is no competition because they are protected by long patent terms.

    Patents exist (see Art. 1, Sec 8 of the US Constitution) to encourage science and the arts. Not to encourage profit. The Congress has been bought and they keep extending the length of patent and copyright protections.

    So shorten the time that patents are in effect. When the old antibiotics become public domain there will be a strong incentive for the big rich pharma companies to invest in developing the new ones.

    --
    "He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
    1. Re:Patent terms by ranton · · Score: 2, Insightful

      atents exist (see Art. 1, Sec 8 of the US Constitution) to encourage science and the arts. Not to encourage profit.

      That is a very odd statement. Patents encourage science and the arts by protecting profits.

      So shorten the time that patents are in effect. When the old antibiotics become public domain there will be a strong incentive for the big rich pharma companies to invest in developing the new ones.

      Where is the incentive? If they can still profit selling a branded antibiotic with a generic formula, they will do so. Tylenol is still sold even though you can buy cheaper generic acetaminophen.

      The incentive to develop new drugs is only the profits the new drug can make. And shortening patent length on future drugs limits those profits. It won't stop drug development, but it certainly would reduce it. It may still be necessary to do this to make drugs cheaper, but that doesn't change the fact it would slow new drug development.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    2. Re:Patent terms by the+gnat · · Score: 2

      The reason it is so profitable for companies to continue to sell old antibiotics is that the research and marketing is largely done. It' s pure profit with no additional investment. And there is no competition because they are protected by long patent terms.

      I think the patent term is only 17 years or so - and pharmaceuticals tend to have a lengthy approval process, so it ends up being shorter. Basically anything invented in the mid-1990s or earlier is off-patent (with the caveat that use for specific indications may still be patented, but this doesn't prevent doctors from prescribing it "off-label"). Viagra, for instance, was introduced in 1998 and is now generic in much of the world, and you can get off-label generics in the US even though the patent applying to erectile dysfunction lasts until 2019. So, no, "old" antibiotics are not protected by long patent terms.

    3. Re:Patent terms by suutar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      but protecting profits is a _means_, not an _end_. In this case there is evidence that we're pushing the means to the detriment of the end.

    4. Re:Patent terms by david_thornley · · Score: 2

      FDA regulations are, fundamentally, what the US public wants. There's a tradeoff between safety and inexpensive drug testing, and the US public prefers the former. This may not be a completely rational decision (a lot of it was reaction to the thalidomide problems), but I don't think you're going to pick up votes, net, by promising to ease drug approval rules.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    5. Re:Patent terms by sjames · · Score: 2

      Where is the incentive? If they can still profit selling a branded antibiotic with a generic formula, they will do so. Tylenol is still sold even though you can buy cheaper generic acetaminophen.

      Sure, but in the mean while, they are all trying to develop the next generation blockbuster NSAID,

      The profits from patent protection should be just enough to spur more innovation and no more. When you buy a car, do you pay the salesman the least amount he will accept for the car or do you toss in a $20,000 tip?

    6. Re:Patent terms by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

      My sister was part of a team that got a patent. The university where she worked shopped around for people that might be able to profit from the patent. Nobody bought it. It sat in the patent office until the patent expired. Now all people that could profit from the patent are free to do so without having to pay the university for the privilege. How do you prevent that from happening again?

      Why do you think I am at all inclined to prevent it? They had 17 years to convince someone it was worth having and nobody agreed. Either it just wasn't as useful as they thought or the school wanted too much for it. So, how many are now using the patent without paying?

      As for the rest, profit is one thing, but charging over a hundred dollars for a single pill that costs a dime to make is over the top. Gioving people the choice of everything you own or die is over the top. Evergreening and paying people to not compete are plain unethical and should be illegal.

    7. Re:Patent terms by ChrisMaple · · Score: 2

      I'd guess that fundamentally new medicines are becoming harder to discover, because the easy ones are already known.

      In addition, lawyers seeking an undeserved fortune are out seeking ways to sue drug companies. No day goes by that I don't hear their radio ads.

      Government regulations requiring proof of safety and effectiveness may have gotten tougher.

      Governments outside the US often demand huge price concessions, threatening to manufacture generics themselves. Most of the profit for a new drug invented in the US might come from sales inside the US only.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  11. Re:New = Outlandishly Expensive by the+gnat · · Score: 2

    Because drugs have been patented and sold for obscene piles of money, the regulatory environment has "stepped up their game," in requiring newer drugs to prove their safety and efficacy with obscenely expensive testing protocols before coming to market.

    The failure rate for Phase III clinical trials is somewhere between 25% and 50% - i.e. over half of the drugs that make it through Phases I and II are still not effective enough for regulatory approval. We can therefore reasonably assume that if we get rid of Phase III trials altogether to save Big Pharma some money, half of all new drugs will actually be useless. (Except it'll probably be even worse, because without the risk of Phase III failures - which are the worst nightmare of any sane pharma CEO - they will have less incentive to discard more marginal candidates.)

  12. Re:They need to do things to improve the way abx w by jbeaupre · · Score: 2

    Because of so many logical flaws, it's mind boggling.

    If it is important to bypass the gut, use an injection.
    The gut wall is permeable. those metabolites will be in the gut anyways. But in lower concentration ... leading to higher chance of resistance.
    Metabolism is all over the map. Trying to figure out the pharmakinetics of such a drug to achieve proper dosage would be a nightmare.
    And finally, it's tough enough finding a drug. Finding a drug that can be created by a metabolic pathway is tough squared.

    Yeah, you're going to lose money.

    --
    The world is made by those who show up for the job.
  13. Re: New = Outlandishly Expensive by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

    of course not - same way people look for a UL sticker on their toaster, they have a very strong incentive to prefer safe drugs (as does the prescribing physician).

    Even on net (risks of going too soon vs. too late) estimates are that the FDA process is responsible for twenty million excess deaths:

    http://isil.org/death-by-regul...

    That number could multiply significantly if we get a resistant superbug. No good person supports such an deadly system.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  14. Re:It's because resistance occurs so quickly by tomhath · · Score: 2
    So how do you drive down the time and cost to market?

    That's not the solution. The solution is to keep the new antibiotics in reserve and only use then when absolutely necessary, and then be absolutely sure they are used correctly. Most of the problem is giving people a new drug when their particular infection could be treated by an older drug, or not giving them enough of the drug, or not giving it to them long enough. The Centers for Disease Control are all over this problem but it will take a while to change behavior.

  15. Need to get rid of proving drugs are safe by trout007 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The burden in drug companies is too high. Biology is too complex. If peanuts were a drug they wouldn't get approved because too many people have bad reactions, but they are perfectly safe for others.

    All a drug company should need to do is disclose what the drug contains and be liable for fraud if it deviates from this.

    --
    I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
    1. Re:Need to get rid of proving drugs are safe by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 2

      Awesome shift of burden. So now every person would need to test himself against every known and unknown compound in the universe to see if he can accept it in his body? Yeah, that's going to work.

  16. I'm confused by LunaticTippy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I keep hearing about how there are no new antibiotics, but I never really looked into it. A quick gooble search found 36 new antibiotics currently in development. Some of them are combinations of existing antibiotics (a promising but not very innovative approach) and some of them are new molecules.

    --
    Man, you really need that seminar!
  17. Re:Not at all by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 2

    When there is something that we clearly need that the current innovation engine will not steer us toward for a long time, it can make sense to tweak that innovation engine a bit

    You have failed to answer the question why the US needs to do that. Supposedly, the oh-so-more-"socialist", wealthy, and rational European nations could do that. Yet they don't.

    Not at all--I think there is amazing innovation in US healthcare

    The amount of innovation in US health care is pitiful compared to what it could be. We have the biggest public health care system in the world (both in absolute terms and per capita), with the spending of the remaining private system massively regulated. And both public and private systems redirect money towards highly profitable but mostly useless interventions, because that's what health care providers, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical lobby for. The only saving grace of our health care system is that others are even worse. But increasing government health care spending takes us in exactly the wrong direction.

  18. Resistance develops too quickly to make money by iamr00t · · Score: 2

    New radiolap is about this
    http://www.radiolab.org/story/...
    last antibiotics that got into market developed resistance in 2 years, so commercial companies don't want to deal with this

    otoh at least this podcast gives hope (similar to article) that we just have to rotate the antibiotics we have :)

  19. Newsflash by easyTree · · Score: 2

    Drug companies are in 'health' for the money rather than benefits to humanity.

    More news after the break.

    --
    Requiem for the American Dream