Case in point, Cuba's lung cancer vaccine[1]. Which a company has brought to the U.S. as CIMAvax-EGF[2]. [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/01/09/cuba-ha... [2]: https://www.roswellpark.org/cimavax
Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done
11–20 of 159 posts
Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done
#12That's interesting. I was just reading about how high dose IV vitamin c can induce cell death in a wide variety of cancers, but somehow, despite this being known for decades, nobody has done rigorous research on it. https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/news-eve... From what I can tell there are several things like this - that have promising anti cancer effects, that just don't really get that much atte…
When my wife was alive, some people in her group tried it. There's not much evidence.
>> that have promising anti cancer effects
I don't know why people gravitate towards the "simple" remedies for cancer, or pose that money making is a barrier for these remedies. Remember, research costs money! DO the funding yourself if you think there's a miracle cure here. (hint: there's not.)
Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done
#13That's interesting. I was just reading about how high dose IV vitamin c can induce cell death in a wide variety of cancers, but somehow, despite this being known for decades, nobody has done rigorous research on it. https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/news-eve... From what I can tell there are several things like this - that have promising anti cancer effects, that just don't really get that much atte…
IIRC medical research is really expensive , hence money-seeking is to fund it within capitalism. Also IIRC the rewards are oversized compared to the costs, but that doesn't change that the costs are also huge. Does mean I'm generally in favour of getting every government to quadruple public spending on this though. Whatever the current spend is, we can do more.
Rare diseases fund research through philanthropy. And let's not forget Biden's Cancer Moonshot program!
Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done
#14Anyone can mix chemicals in a test tube and claim it’s the cure for something. That’s the easy part. Proving it’s safe and effective, that’s what requires a lot of capital expenditure.
This statement is a drastic characterization, but you could say “half a dozen PhDs can form reasons to believe they may have found a cure for something”, and the paragraph would end the same.
Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done
#15That's interesting. I was just reading about how high dose IV vitamin c can induce cell death in a wide variety of cancers, but somehow, despite this being known for decades, nobody has done rigorous research on it. https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/news-eve... From what I can tell there are several things like this - that have promising anti cancer effects, that just don't really get that much atte…
> That's interesting. I was just reading about how high dose IV vitamin c can induce cell death in a wide variety of cancers, but somehow, despite this being known for decades, nobody has done rigorous research on it.
Sigh. Vitamin C quackery again.
Vitamin C at high doses is cytotoxic, so it works against rapidly dividing cells. Cancer cells also preferentially concentrate vitamin C because they are under oxidative stress.
However, just like with most of other generally cytotoxic treatments, cancer cells quickly evolve resistance to it. And the overall toxicity of vitamin C makes it uninteresting as a treatment.
Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done
#16>Drawing up such a dossier is a profession in itself. An important detail: the EMA is asking for around €350,000 to assess the book.
This is a massive understatement of the regulatory hurdles at play. I have worked on dossiers that took 200 man-years at 400k per person. This is the development part of pharma R&D. The dossier might be a thousand pages submitted, but that can easily be 100,000+ pages on the backend.
There's a reason that even billion dollar companies crumble and fail under the documentation complexity.
Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done
#17Case in point, Cuba's lung cancer vaccine[1]. Which a company has brought to the U.S. as CIMAvax-EGF[2]. [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/01/09/cuba-ha... [2]: https://www.roswellpark.org/cimavax
As an aside, what makes this a vaccine vs a treatment?
Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done
#18That's interesting. I was just reading about how high dose IV vitamin c can induce cell death in a wide variety of cancers, but somehow, despite this being known for decades, nobody has done rigorous research on it. https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/news-eve... From what I can tell there are several things like this - that have promising anti cancer effects, that just don't really get that much atte…
> That's interesting. I was just reading about how high dose IV vitamin c can induce cell death in a wide variety of cancers, but somehow, despite this being known for decades, nobody has done rigorous research on it. Sigh. Vitamin C quackery again. Vitamin C at high doses is cytotoxic, so it works against rapidly dividing cells. Cancer cells also preferentially concentrate vitamin C because they are under oxidative…
Thanks for providing a plausible explanation. Do you know of any links (ideally peer- reviewed research) supporting the quick evolution of resistance to vitamin C? If not I'll google around.
Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done
#19That's interesting. I was just reading about how high dose IV vitamin c can induce cell death in a wide variety of cancers, but somehow, despite this being known for decades, nobody has done rigorous research on it. https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/news-eve... From what I can tell there are several things like this - that have promising anti cancer effects, that just don't really get that much atte…
It’s pretty unlikely that this is true for a few reasons:
- Doctors want the best outcomes for their patients. They’ll use whatever treatment is most effective
- Doctors want the best outcomes for themselves. If they’ve found an effective treatment that others are overlooking then they’ll seek to publish
- Patients want the best outcomes for themselves. If there is an overlooked treatment then they’ll communicate it to their doctor
it’s unlikely for an effective treatment to exist and be ignored by the medical community for decades just because something can’t be patented
Re: Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done
#20That's interesting. I was just reading about how high dose IV vitamin c can induce cell death in a wide variety of cancers, but somehow, despite this being known for decades, nobody has done rigorous research on it. https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/news-eve... From what I can tell there are several things like this - that have promising anti cancer effects, that just don't really get that much atte…
> That's interesting. I was just reading about how high dose IV vitamin c can induce cell death in a wide variety of cancers, but somehow, despite this being known for decades, nobody has done rigorous research on it. Sigh. Vitamin C quackery again. Vitamin C at high doses is cytotoxic, so it works against rapidly dividing cells. Cancer cells also preferentially concentrate vitamin C because they are under oxidative…
This was just published by UI showing a potent effect of high dose vitamin C + chemotherapy: https://medicine.uiowa.edu/content/high-dose-iv-vitamin-c-pl... and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221323172...