I don’t know about these things. I didn’t grow up in the right circles. I know movers and shakers move and shake but I’m neither.
So tonight I see this story about a very promising cancer treatment on our news show: http://tinyurl.com/yojjvz
and I’m thinking now if I was a mover or a shaker, I’d probably be six degrees away from someone who could do something about this. I’m assuming I could call Joe Schmoe who golfs with Magnum Richie who is at the same country club with C.E.O. WealthInc. whose son is married to Miss Lolita Meetamogul who just happens to be Bill Gates’ babysitter and she could mention the story to him who could tell Warren Buffet and together they might find a few bills in the couch cushions to see this drug through its trials.
But I’m not. Is that how it works? How do obscure things make it to the attention of people who can get the job done? Would more news stories do it? If CNN picked up the story, would Ted Turner step in? What can the researchers do?
Pray that somehow someone gets them the money to continue trials? Hope that somehow the drug companies decide to act outside their normal profit minded behaviors, and try a bit of altruism? It would be a heck of an ad campaign for whichever company sponsered the trials and development. “We helped fund a cure for cancer out of the goodness of our heart and our love of mankind!”
It’s not a bad investment to release and sell something that works than to spend 80 billion dollars researching something that may work 20 years down the line.
If it actually looks promising, I would have to assume that someone will invest in it.
But if not, then probably my recommendation would be to ask any pharmaceutical Dopers if they know if the molecule is actually all that promising, or just one of hundreds of potentially promising paths. And if they say it looks real, then indeed, try and get knowledge of it spread on cancer boards and whatnot.
This bit of tripe constantly gets on my nerves. Drug companies are among the largest philanthropic donors of any industry sector, accounting for nearly one third of total charitable giving by corporations in the US. Cite (PDF).
Well, then the researcher’s fears that no drug company will be willing to fund research because the drug will sell cheaply are unfounded, right? :dubious:
All the major pharmaceutical companies have grant programs specifically earmarked for research that may lead to medical advances but which may not be profitable. That’s not to say they’re going to rush to fund this – for every unpatented molecule that may cure cancer, there’s a dozen gene therapies and that may cure AIDS and new formulation of Beano to eradicate flatulance once and for all.
If these researchers can demonstrate that their drug really might have the hyped-up effects that an imbecile TV news reporter says it does, then there will be about a billion government programs, universities, drug companies and private research foundations who will be happy to toss money at it.
I don’t see the need to insult the reporter. She’s a medical correspondent of long standing who has won a passle of awards. The point of her story is that the drug is already off-patent so no organization will be able to capitalize on a patent or claim it as proprietary should they invest money in researching it.
If you know the industry well, then perhaps you could contact the researchers and suggest which companies they should approach. After reading their report in Cancer Cell to be sure the effects aren’t ‘hyped-up’, of course.
Fair enough. I’m not used to seeing competent science reporting on TV, even from supposedly qualified reporters. But I’m not familiar with her so I will withdraw my condemnation.
I don’t get this. The article states the compound is already being sold in chemistry stores. What is it about finding this compound is a cancer cure that would make it so “less profitable” that already existing products would be taken off the market?
I mean… aspirin is cheap, no-one holds a patent on the compound… yet it’s being competitively marketed and sold.
Quite honestly, the article makes no sense as written, unless you assume the authors have some axe to grind.
Nobody said anything about existing products being taken off the market. Not sure why you mentioned that.
The chemical as it exists is marketed and approved as a therapy for other ailments, not for cancer. For it to be approved as a cancer treatment, it has to be tested as a cancer treatment and the testing is extremely expensive. There will be no payoff to a particular company that tests it since the money sunk into the research cannot be recouped by the company owning the patent.
As for the overall costs and profit margins of generic drugs and whether any organization could make a profit from it, I don’t know. I guess it all depends on how risk-averse the shareholders are. I imagine there would be money to be made even it if it’s sold as a generic but the problem is that until it’s approved, sinking money into a study might be a waste of cash.
However, given that the medication is already proved to be safe to humans since it’s being used to treat other illnesses, the only hurdle is proving its effectiveness against cancers.
It would be a heck of an ad campaign for whichever company sponsered the trials and development. “We helped fund a cure for cancer out of the goodness of our heart and our love of mankind!”