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."
Am I missing something? (Score:2, Informative)
If people are willing to pay for it, how come somebody isn't willing to profit from it?
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a job for a different business model, that's all.
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It's not really a barrier. (Score:4, Informative)
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So granny doesn't die of that cancer and takes her diabetes, blood pressure, osteoporosis, and glaucoma medication for 10 ext
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Right now, the healthcare system is being driven by those who make the most profit from it. There's lots of incentive to treat with no incentive to cure.
On the other hand, medical insurers have LOTS of incentive to promote preventative and curing meaures. I'd like to see some sort of requirement for medical insurers to grant portions of their windfall profits for medical research... give them some sort of tax break or something as compensation.
Cheap (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe the best chance (though a dangerous one) for it is for people to just start using it as an unregulated "nutritional supplement"; then maybe the new NIH institute that tests "alternative" therapies (I forget it
Quackery. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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Well, yes, but on the other hand a lot of money is saved on patent fees. Stop looking at the dark side of things. Sheesh.
For ages lots of people have fought for state funded research in drugs in Europe for this exact reason (well, among others, notably the fact that very few labs actually do any research any more). Af
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Sure, but whom? (Score:2)
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.
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)
Big money defends itself.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Informative)
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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: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.)
Funny (Score:3)
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We haven't figured out what to do with D.C. yet. Maybe give it back to the Indians, since it isn't good for anything anymore. Then they can rename that damn football team.
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Re:Funny (Score:5, Informative)
FTA:
"A small, non-toxic molecule may soon be available as an inexpensive treatment for many forms of cancer, including lung, breast and brain tumours, say University of Alberta researchers."
Sir Frederick Banting, (another Canadian) did the same thing with his patent for Insulin, so that drug companies would never have a monopoly on something needed for people to live.
Are you trying to troll me? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_and_America
Apples and Oranges (Score:3, Funny)
You even EAT apples and oranges, don't you? We subsist entirely on freedom fries cooked in trans fats.
Re:Are you trying to troll me? (Score:5, Informative)
There are many things we must pay for, out of pocket. Perscription drugs and non-approved cancer treatments are two of them.
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Up to a point (differs by province) (Score:3, Informative)
Even someone who makes six figures may get their drugs paid for if they are on extre
Not exactly (Score:3, Informative)
Lowest Cost Alternative [gov.bc.ca]
Also, co
Jackass (Score:3, Informative)
You got it backwards (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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.
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Re:Moo (Score:5, Informative)
Someone mentioned the inventor of insulin trying to ensure a "no-monopoly" situation, but since the advent of human insulin produced by genetically engineered bacteria (as opposed to from the pancreas of slaughtered cows/pigs), a select few companies (Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk and that's about it with one exception) have dominated the insulin market since the 1970s (Insulin was discovered in the early 1920s, by the way) due to patents on:
Methods of producing insulin (specifically recombinant DNA origin insulins)
Methods of tweaking insulin to be absorbed/used by the body over a longer period of time by adding stuff to the injected mixture (Lente, Ultralente, NPH, etc)
Methods of producing insulin with "faster than natural" activity profiles by tweaking the molecular structure itself (Humalog and Novolog)
Methods of producing insulin with extremely long "peakless" activity profiles by a combination of the above two techniques (Lantus and Levemir) - BTW this is where the one exception to the Lilly/Nordisk dominance is. Lantus is made by Aventis.
From one "unpatented" drug that according to this article will not have an interest from big pharma, history shows that global market dominance can still be established. I have a feeling drug companies right and left will be racing to tweak this new drug to make a better version or better production process (which happens to be patentable).
May not matter. (Score:5, Informative)
The practical upshot of this is that if the drug does go to the universities to be developed it would be following the normal track of most medical research. And if any patentability (say on dosage levels) does show up the companies can always buy it then.
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This isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. If we reduced the duration of patent protection it would be an entirely reasonable way to recoup the costs of research, and to bring drugs (and other things) into mass production to benefit the public.
Or you know, we can just wait unti
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This is a total non-sequitur.
First, drug companies have a huge incentive to rush a drug to market once they believe it is safe and effective. They've
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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 adm
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Maybe they should go peddle their wares to the Gates Foundation. =)
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profit.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Generic drug manufacturers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Generic drug manufacturers (Score:5, Interesting)
And there's the possibility that once they've spent all that money, it could fail. Maybe the pill just doesn't work. Maybe there are side effects: look at the way Merck is getting hammered for producing a highly effective pill (Vioxx) that just happened, to, well, kill a few people.
Barr makes their money by letting somebody else pay for all that, and then coming in a few years later and charging a lot less. It's the usual problem: the second pill costs $.49, but the first pill costs $75,000,000.
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Given this, I'd thin
Re:Generic drug manufacturers (Score:4, Informative)
It's basically a case of too much of a good thing. IIRC, there are were suggestions of allowing restricted use but I don't remember what the deal is.
Re:Generic drug manufacturers (Score:5, Informative)
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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
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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.
It's not as if... (Score:2)
...Big Pharma would do it for the betterment of all mankind -- no profit in that!
Interesting note: CNN is reporting that Cancer deaths have dropped for the second straight year [cnn.com].
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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.
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Yeah, it really sucked when the patent expired on Aspirin. Now nobody can buy one because businesses can't make money off it.
Au contrair -- the development of Aspirin (trademarked) by Bayer marked a breakthrough in the treatment of acute pain and was a boon to Bayer, until that is, their competitors found a way to copy the formula and create other versions of "Aspirin." So they were able to wring their profits after it was initially developed; now, it is a generic drug, one that anyone can produce, making it relatively cheap and easy to obtain, though for any major pharmaceutical company producing it, it provides only an insign
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Not AFAIK. My understanding is that the FDA will fasttrack an already approved drug (such as this one) for alternative uses. Since safety is already proven, the only thing necessary is efficacy trials (so far as I know).
Fortunately, this makes it far more likely that a non-profit (or the government, who is obviously interested in lowering
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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?
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.
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So if this medecine is so wonderful, and developing medecines for profit is so evil, why doesn't this University start mass-producing this medecine and giving it away for free?
For one, it would be illegal since the thing isn't FDA approved. And what does it take to get FDA approved, you ask? Years of studies and many millions of dollars. See many of the other posts on the topic, I'll not repeat them, but the basic point is that they'd have no hope of recouping their investment simply because tons of oth
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This just in: developing medecines takes work, and work costs resources. Anybody who can think of a better way to provide resources to the people interested in developing medecines, besides patent royalties and the like, please come forward.
How about taking the money Big Pharma uses to line the pockets of its CEOs and the egregiously large profits these companies make and putting the bulk of it into research and production? How about diverting resources and money from male impotence drugs, since I suspect far more people have cancer than there are men who can't spank the monkey.
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If it's wrong to spend your time developing Viagra and selling it to misguided middle-aged salarymen, and we should take things away from such people and make them spend their time on cure for cancer instead, then what about you?
You're obviously intelligent and skilled, and yet you're probably not doing anything to help cure cancer, are you? So when can we expect to see you give up yo
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You're obviously intelligent and skilled, and yet you're probably not doing anything to help cure cancer, are you? So when can we expect to see you give up your job, quit posting to Slashdot in your leisure time, and join a cancer-cure R&D team at minimum wage? Anything less, and we'll find you guilty of exercising your freedom for your own benefit at the expense of your fellow man, and we'll force you to be a more productive and helpful member of society.
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 tha
How about socialism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How about socialism? [mod parent up] (Score:2)
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Open Source It! (Score:2)
waiting is the hardest part (Score:2)
Yeah, well, if they continue to hold it up, it may not get a chance due to lack of patients.
Private enterprises won't develop the cure? (Score:5, Interesting)
I just don't understand this country anymore: have people completely forgotten we have (or should have) public labs to do the kind of research short-sighted profit-oriented companies won't do? apart for military technologies, it seems society has decided to put its future advances squarely and solely in the hands of the corporate world. This is sad.
Re:Private enterprises won't develop the cure? (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember, "public" means "government", and "government" is the stupidest there is, unable to do anything at all right. All such intelligence and acumen reside with "business". If only "government" would get out of the way with silly regulations, operating under the principles of the "free market", the profit motive would induce "business" to do the right thing, with the end result that we'd all be better off.
Silly things like effective medications that are inherently low-cost are an aberration, and don't really exist.
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As with every "New Miracle Cure For Cancer!" story here (this is, what, the fourth one of the year and we're barely halfway through January), this is something that kills tumors in-vitro, published in a respectable but unremarkable journal and then hyped by an overexcitable univerity PR department. There are literally dozens of results like this every week, virtually all of which go nowhere.
As for the notion that the unwillingness to develop a drug in the a
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Actually, according to this more thorough article [newscientist.com], the drug has also proven effective is mouse models.
Granted, this still isn't the same as a human trial, but it's a far cry from simply killing cancer in a petri dish.
As for the notion that the unwillingness to develop a drug in the absence of patent protection somehow is an argument against patents
Actually, it's more of an argument against privately funded drug development, as it's pretty clear that an unpatentab
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.
If it didn't cost billions to get FDA approval (Score:2)
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Get out your chemistry set (Score:5, Interesting)
If worse comes to worse you raid your old "Super Advance Kiddee Chemistry Set" and dose yourself.
OneWorld Health (Score:2)
Better, more informative article (Score:5, Informative)
-mcgrew (my computer is broken):
Not sure what the big deal is? (Score:2, Insightful)
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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)
"New use" patent? (Score:2)
Easy solution (Score:3, Funny)
2. Market it as a natural supplement.
3. Profit!
Interesting Take (Score:2)
I wish people would think for 10 minutes (Score:2)
1) Even though it is not patent, drug companies would still make million and millions of dollars. Yes they would all be compteting, but even then they would still make millions and millions of dollars.
2) There is no reason that they wouldn't start some sort of group development project, then split the profits.
3) There are companies in other countries who could do this.
Of course, all the deals with reality and not with spouting some personal and illogical point
Not in the "West" (Score:5, Informative)
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Also disturbing is the fact that the Cubans discovered a new use for policosanol (increasing BMD for post-menopausal women) at just about exactly the time the cholesterol claim was being shot down by a large study.
Let's not all sign up for the Cuban
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Only if you've been brainwashed by western propaganda.
Naturally! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is how deregulated industries benefit consumers. Ohh wait...
0.o (Score:4, Informative)
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...
Universities? (Score:3, Insightful)
Good thing this is in Canada... (Score:5, Interesting)
The research in question [cihr-irsc.gc.ca] was funded by a Canadian federal government agency, and I'm certain that one [bccrc.ca] or [ocrn.on.ca] two [cancer.ca] well-funded, non-profit and/or public sector agencies will step up to the plate to study whether the proposed treatment is safe, and if so, some smart non-intellectual-property-driven and yet profitable [canadiangenerics.ca] organization will market it.
In other words (Score:3, Interesting)
The idea that a lack of patent would prvent production is silly. Look at aspirin. It is made competively by any number of drug companies and lack of patents doesn't reduce aspirin's availability.
bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if there is no economic incentive for drug companies or HMOs to develop a drug like DCA, it can always be tested and approved based on tax-payer funded trials--in the end, that will save the tax payers a lot of money compared to having the drug patented and sold at a premium. Furthermore, often, such drugs somehow manage to get used even without approval through various programs and channels.
I have my doubts that DCA is the miracle drug the article suggests, but if it is, it's a good thing that it isn't patented: more people will be able to use it and it will cost less.
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