Cancer Drug May Not Get A Chance Due to Lack of Patent 471
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."
Moo (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
profit.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:4, Insightful)
This just in... (Score:4, Insightful)
And anybody who thinks that people should use their own resources to develop medecines, and then not ask for anything in return when they offer those medecines to the public, are kindly invited to drop whatever they're doing right now, that puts food on the table and a roof over their heads, and devote everything they have to developing medecines for free.
There are other ways... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Obvious solution (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of people on Slashdot may disagree with this, but the "free market" is not the solution to everything.
How about socialism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:If it didn't cost billions to get FDA approval (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's not as if... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, it really sucked when the patent expired on Aspirin. Now nobody can buy one because businesses can't make money off it.
Memo: Something that flatters your prejudices is not the same as news.
Not sure what the big deal is? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's not as if... (Score:2, Insightful)
To point out the blatantly obvious, it's not their money to screw around with; it belongs to the owners, i.e. the stockholders.
How you would you feel if you suddenly stopped getting interest from your accounts just because your investment institution decided to give the money to a charitable cause?
Re:Generic drug manufacturers (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope.
Manufacturing off-patent generics differs from bringing a new unpatentable product to market in one very key aspect - Off-patent drugs already have FDA approval.
Finding substance-X doesn't cost that much... Pharmaceutical companies have developed techniques for rapidly trying every plausible variant of a given structure in one huge parallel batch. The cost comes from taking those chemicals that show promise, performing clinical trials to show safety and efficacy, getting FDA approval, and then actually marketing the drug.
And highlighting just about the worst aspect of capitalism, the problem here doesn't just come from whether or not a company could take a likely candidate, do all that I mention above, and still turn a profit - The problem comes from the fact that seconds after one company foots the bill for all that, the rest can then start production and undercut the first player. So, rather than making less money than the competition, no one will take that leap.
Some will gloatingly point out that drug patents exist in the first place to address that exact problem. Of course, that completely misses the point that in this case, the patent system has still failed to solve the problem, and if anything, exacerbated it.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
A surprise to ANYONE? Blame government/attorneys (Score:1, Insightful)
For all those who see something wrong in this (and I'm talking to the Big Pharama Conspiracy crowd here... the same bunch who believes in the 200MPG carburettor stories), perhaps you'd like to cough up some money out of your personal budget to cover the costs and risks of conducting these trials and persuing FDA approval. If all goes well, you could then give away the results for the betterment of mankind. But talk is cheap.
And don't even get me started on liability issues. Just ask John Edwards (former Vice Presidential candidate) how much money is to be had by suing drug companies. There are legions of attorneys standing by waiting to pounce on any perceived harm, no matter how obscure or rare.
Both of these costs discourage drug development such as this one, and force "Big Pharma" to be especially risk adverse.
Blame government and attorneys.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's not as if... (Score:2, Insightful)
That misses the point of the article. If somebody wants to sell this to treat cancer, the FDA is going to require 800 million dollars worth of Phase I, II, and III clinical trials before it allows the claim.
Without the promise of patent protection, nobody is going to drop a billion dollars doing that.
Substitute your own number - if it's greater than the amount likely to be made selling a generic, there's no simple business case for it. There may be some PR business cases for it if the number is low enough.
See? I was right... (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:Not in the "West" (Score:3, Insightful)
Only if you've been brainwashed by western propaganda.
Universities? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not sure what the big deal is? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, and when you have an infection, you can just eat some moldy bread too...
Pharmaceuticals drugs aren't just the active ingredient. If they were, we'd just eat pieces of willow tree bark for headaches, instead of taking aspirin.
Unreasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
You got it backwards (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:May not matter. (Score:3, Insightful)
Except that the pioneering work was done in Canada.
Moreover, there is no IP here... the drug is simply not patentable (AFAIK). The only options are patenting delivering mechanisms ('course, it can apparently be administered orally, so there doesn't appear to be any options along those lines) or derivative drugs (admittedly there may be options, here).
The more interesting thing is that the mitochondria appear to be a viable target for cancer therapy drugs. If anything, this discovery may spur work into developing other drugs/therapies.
Re:Generic drug manufacturers (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course there should be restrictions in an otherwise free market to ensure that medicines are safe, but they need to be balanced against the risk that they become so onerous that we don't get the medicines at all. It looks like the balance is wrong in this particular case.
Re:You got it backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Fortunately, countries like Canada are willing to spend money to develop drugs that everyone can benefit from.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Moo (Score:2, Insightful)
What people are overlooking is in the US to sell a drug it has to be FDA approved and goign through that process is expensive.
Well then, Fuck em I say.. you can keep your cancer if that's what the FDA says. Here's to me thinking pharmaceutical companies are a bad idea, but I'm a goddamned squirrel-loving socialist Canadian aren't I ?
In my book, capitalism and health should not mix.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You got it backwards (Score:2, Insightful)
Then nobody would be developing new drugs, or if they were they'd be working on how to obfusticate the real drug and hiding how to produce it(trade secrets).
Then you'd have publicly develop and manufacture new drugs because nobody would be interested in taking the effort.
Vitamin C as an example is a bit of a misnomer - It's a naturally occuring product that's been out for quite a while and is a known part of basic nutrition. Also, take a look at how much marketing goes on to somehow differentiate their product from somebody else's.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)
Big money defends itself.
Re:This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll gladly work for anyone who can put my computer and psychology skills to good use curing cancer, AIDS, poverty, etc. I'll even do it for free, in what little spare time I have. I don't pretend to be trying to cure anything, nor do I pretend to have the answers for all of society's ills. What I do know is that your typical CEO makes about 50,000 times more than most of the people who work for them, and if any of them were truly committed to the welfare of others, they'd put the money to work rather than spending it on luxury.
BTW, whenever this country has put its mind to something, it has accomplished it. What we need is a Manhattan Project to cure cancer, and one to fight AIDS, and one to end poverty world-wide. I'll gladly pony up my spare cash to fund these initiatives.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:3, Insightful)
So granny doesn't die of that cancer and takes her diabetes, blood pressure, osteoporosis, and glaucoma medication for 10 extra years when she just drops dead from boredom. Oooh, what a financial loss overall for the med/pharma complex, NOT!
Corporations make money, don't save lives (Score:1, Insightful)
Corporation's only worry IS to make money. They don't *try* to help society, save lives, make us safer or more confortable. They only do this indirectly, as a byproduct of the money-making activity.
It is OUR responsibility to do the right thing, and don't rely on the market for things it cannot do.
Let the market make money and people save lives.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't this why we have governments? (Score:2, Insightful)
You know, to fund necessary things for the public good?
No profit in it, but that's why we pay taxes. So the government can do something that doesn't turn a huge profit.