What If There's A Cure For Cancer, But It Was Too Unprofitable To Invest In?
Digby links to this All Headline News article that reports that a university researcher in Canada may have found a cheap and effective way to fight cancer, but the money-grubbing pharmaceutical companies whose profit margins the pubilc sector must protect at all times is not going to financially support the research:
It is expected there would be no problems securing funding to explore a drug that could shrink cancerous tumors and has no side-effects in humans, but University of Alberta researcher Evangelos Michelakis has hit a stalemate with the private sector who would normally fund such a venture.Michelakis' drug is none other than dichloroacetate (DCA), a drug which cannot be patented and costs pennies to make.
It's no wonder he can't secure the $400-600 million needed to conduct human trials with the medicine - the drug doesn't have the potential to make enough money.
Michelakis told reporters they will be applying to public agencies for funding, as pharmaceuticals are reluctant to pick up the drug.
At roughly $2 a dose, there isn't much chance to make a billion on the cancer treatment over the long term.
Yeah, it's not enough they had to make the National Institute of Health a flea market for new, publicly funded research for private companies to exploit and profit from, now they will refuse to participate in a potentially revolutionary treatment for a devastating disease because they might not be able to charge exorbitant prices to administer it? I'll remember this once I see another Paxil commercial on television.