Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

NCPA: Corporate Profits - Supercede Cancer Care Needs

National Center for Policy Analysis | 04.04.2007 22:11 | Education | Health | World

In the current system of drug development, if a promising compound can't be patented, it is highly unlikely ever to make it to market — no matter how well it performs in the laboratory.
The development of new cancer drugs is crippled as a result, says columnist Ralph W. Moss.

 http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?page=article&Article_ID=14390
National Center for Policy Analysis: PATENTS OVER PATIENTS

In the current system of drug development, if a promising compound can't be patented, it is highly unlikely ever to make it to market — no matter how well it performs in the laboratory. The development of new cancer drugs is crippled as a result, says columnist Ralph W. Moss.

The reason: bringing a new drug to market is extremely expensive. Consider:
In 2001, the estimated cost was $802 million; today it is approximately $1 billion.
To ensure a healthy return on such staggering investments, drug companies seek to formulate new drugs in a way that guarantees watertight patents.

As a result, drugs that can't be patented are often scrapped, says Moss. For example:

1) In 2004, Johns Hopkins researchers discovered that an off-the-shelf compound called 3-bromopyruvate could arrest the growth of liver cancer in rats; with a treatment cost around 70 cents per day.
- Yet, three years later, no major drug company has shown interest in developing this drug for human use.

2) Early this year, another readily available industrial chemical, dichloroacetate, was found by researchers at the University of Alberta to shrink tumors in laboratory animals by up to 75 percent.
- However, dichloroacetate is not patentable either, and the lead researcher is concerned that it may be difficult to find funding from private investors to test the chemical.

Potential anticancer drugs should be judged on their scientific merit, not on their patentability, says Moss. One solution might be for the government to enlarge the Food and Drug Administration's "orphan drug" program, which subsidizes the development of drugs for rare diseases. The definition of orphan drug could be expanded to include unpatentable agents that are scorned as unprofitable by pharmaceutical companies.

Source: Ralph W. Moss, "Patents Over Patients," New York Times, April 1, 2007.
For text:  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/opinion/01moss.html

For more on Health Issues:
 http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=16

National Center for Policy Analysis
- Homepage: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?page=article&Article_ID=14390

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech