From: Julia Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: new wonder drug scours arteries clean Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 21:18:49 -0600 (CST)
On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Erik Reuter wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 07:23:58PM -0600, Dan Minette wrote: > > > Drugs are a classic example of this. Once a drug has passed clinical > > trials, the cost of copying is much smaller than the cost of > > development. Further, there's no risk in copying.
For non-biological compounds, the costs are typically much lower to copy. Biologicals are very expensive to produce, and they are typically harder to deliver to where they are needed within the body. That's one reason their costs remain high when introduced to the market.
> > Is there risk in searching for cancer cures? I suppose NIH doesn't take > any risks with their billions of $$ spent ?
As I mentioned in my earlier post, the chances that a potential drug will fail (as in kill the patient or produce unexpected side effects) before it even makes it to the testing phase make the risks prohibitively high.
NIH is funded by the government, it is *not* a corporation. (And they had a decent pension plan awhile back, don't know what it's like now.)
Maybe the US government should be involved in drug research, then? Because either a corporation is doing the research or the government is. (If there's another alternative I'm overlooking, please mention it.)
Yes, academic institutions doing not-for-profit basic research or investigating possible applied research avenues.
And they've been involved in trying to find cancer cures for a good number of years -- I remember stories about my grandmother dealing with rats in the 1950s -- and they haven't come up with much of a *cure* yet. They do know more about cancer, though.
It's a *lot* more complicated than simply identifying the biological problem and isolating a molecular combination that will address it. I could go into this at length.
Jon
Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com
_________________________________________________________________
Frustrated with dial-up? Get high-speed for as low as $26.95. https://broadband.msn.com (Prices may vary by service area.)
_______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
