It really is true that pharmaceutical companies are spending almost no effort on developing new antibiotics. Do you think that we’ve already discovered every possible antibiotic chemical? We’ve developed many, and we could develop many more. But we aren’t. Why not? It’s not because they wouldn’t be useful, or because they wouldn’t save a lot of lives.
An article from The Pharmaceutical Journal 2013 that addresses the question, and some efforts to address answers to it.
Wanted to come back to this bit. Gilead is illustrative. They were able to make a cure you have to be able to price it like by being able to price it at $84K for the treatment course … which compared to treating Hep C otherwise is still a bargain albeit a front-loaded one. And that cash cow was time limited.
Sure. But some companies have only a couple of drugs. And something that brings in media attention would be perfect for a start-up.
This article answers that question:
https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/news-and-analysis/features/why-are-there-so-few-antibiotics-in-the-research-and-development-pipeline/11130209.article
More or less, it’s Government regs.
Government regs apply to all drug development. If the pharmaceutical companies think that’s such a big problem, then they should be in a different line of business. The antibiotic problem is, in a nutshell, exactly what this thread is about: They would save many lives, but they’re not profitable, and so no drug company is willing to devote resources to develop them. I’m sure that if they stumbled upon one without trying, they’d be happy to sell it, but just stumbling upon drugs isn’t something that happens very often.
Seems to me like the antibiotic issue is one of those situations where, for the public good, we should be subsidizing this sort of thing. If our healthcare costs were under control and as efficient as other countries, that might help us have the money to do this.
I could also see other incentives, like allowing longer patents as long as you can show you are working to make the drug obsolete or on other worthwhile projects. And, of course, there are the tax breaks and such, which can happen after the drug is made, so it’s not so costly.
If raw capitalism isn’t incentivizing what we want, then that’s the time to use something else.
If we are to maintain the market model for pharma, perhaps FDA certification should incur no cost to the developer. Though, I would prefer a more hybridized approach – and a return to the days when Zilnaxacorphenolprim[sup]TM[/sup] could not be advertised to the general public.
Oh, please - it’s not JUST pharma. Think of all the parents who demand that doctors prescribe antibiotics for viral illnesses. As just one example.
Some medical problems are more complex than just one easy explanation or strawman to blame.
I should think that doctors ought to be allowed to prescribe a placebo when the patient demands inappropriate treatment, but I hear that this is proscribed.
if you found the cure for cancer, you’d be wiping your ass with Bugatti Veyrons.
The money would be so ridiculous that even if it meant a diminished cash flow ten years from now, you could invest it in other stuff. Also, vaccines are a form of one-time cure and they are still being produced for profit.
There was a documentary series by the BBC called “The Men who made us Fat” where the total revenue of curing obesity was about $10 trillion. These are the numbers. I’m sure that cancer, which we all may get, especially as we all live to longer age, would be even more profitable.
“Cure for cancer” is a misleading example because of course a company that found a blanket cure would become silly rich. And since if you group all cancers together they’re the second biggest killer in the west, pharma employees are as affected by this as the rest of us: I’ve sadly seen plenty of examples of people visiting oncology clinics as researchers one month and then as a patient the next.
But for diseases that are less common, like just the individual types of cancer, there’s no doubt that the financial imperative is often not towards cure.
And I don’t blame the pharma companies for that: if they don’t think about the bottom line, maybe they go out of business, and the number of treatments or cures they produce would be zero.
I’m in favor of unfettered markets but wrt medical research it’s an area where public (and charitable) funding is undoubtedly also required.
The reality is that sales from successful cancer drugs tend to cover investment costs pretty quickly.
“According to these data, the average cost of developing a cancer drug is about $720 million. The average annual revenue is about $2.7 billion. Within just one year, the annual revenue of the top five drugs on this list—which treat lymphoma, prostate, leukemia, and colorectal cancers—covers the total costs of research and development.”
Of course, that doesn’t take into account losses from new drugs that never make it to market. But in terms of $$, there’s plenty to made from new drugs that just modestly increase life spans. Take for instance meds for non-small cell lung cancer which they are currently advertising the bejeezus out of. Now think of what profits could be made from a non-small cell lung cancer cure (never mind the fantastic publicity, awards etc.).
For a truly depressing look at absence of critical thinking on this issue, check out the Natural News/Alex Jones contingent and the woo-pushers that feed off it. The lack of permanent cures is never about the sheer difficulty of overcoming physiologic barriers, it’s because Big Pharma/doctors/the gummint/Giant Media want to keep us fat, sick and ignorant of Natural Cures which address the Root Causes of illness, and by the way we sell those Cures in our online stores.
Lascufloxacin? Cefiderocol? Taksta? Ceftobiprole? Eravacycline? etc. etc. Yes, antibiotics are hard. But there are 30 or so antibiotics in clinical trials. Most of them probably won’t be approved. But it’s not like people aren’t trying.