Potential breakthrough in cancer treatment, ignored by drug companies

[The Mentaculous]

http://hubpages.com/hub/Scientists_cure ... kes_notice

[DeathBySnooSnoo]

Well, not cured...not yet. But it seems like its a pretty good step towards it!

And no major disease will ever be cured unless there is mass profit to be made.

[The Deacon]

Well, not cured...not yet. But it seems like its a pretty good step towards it!

And no major disease will ever be cured unless there is mass profit to be made.

You can argue that it was prevention, rather than cure, and your definition of major may be different from someone who grew seeing pictures of kids his age in iron lungs, but I don't think Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin, or the drug companies that manufactured the Polio vaccines they created got rich from them. In less than ten years, the number of new cases of polio reported annually in the USA dropped from an average of 20,000 to 161.

[Sequimite]

Looks like BS to me. If the drug is already on the market for other purposes what do the drug companies have to do with it? It's already available to be tried by researchers if they see merit.

[DeathBySnooSnoo]

I meant going forward. I think (and I could very well be wrong) but back 50 years or so ago, drug companies were not the massive global corporations that they today, making billions upon billions of dollars in profits with a desire to continue growing their profits while the whole country (world) is suffering in a pretty bad economy.

And even though a drug is available on the market, in order to have it made available for use as a cancer drug it would still probably have to be proved to be viable and then probably produced in vast quantities that would require a drug company to do, that they would probably not be willing to do without making a large profit and taking a patent out on it which would drive the cost of the drugs through the roof.

But if you read further, this drug has proved semi useful at some types of cancer. But I would say that it will take a few years more research before it would be able to be used as a treatment or even preventative against cancer.

[Sequimite]

The drug companies do control things to as considerable extent in the US IMO, but don't forget that India has a huge pharmaceutical industry which ignores patents and provides over a billion people with cheap drugs. If the drug is useful it will emerge in India or South Africa or China regardless of what big pharma wants.

[Pinetreebbs]

Uhm, isn't there another thread about this same topic?

[Teddy Thompson]

Thing is, cancer is huge, so there's plenty of money to be made if even one specific kind could be conquered. Even though I wish it were otherwise, I can understand the logic behind pharmaceutical companies not wanting to invest in research for a disease only a small number of people will ever get. On the other hand, even if it were generic, there'd be a fortune to be made from a cancer cure. So the logic of sitting on it escapes me. If they're ignoring it, perhaps they know something we don't.