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San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

timesofsandiego.com

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Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#21

Post by [deleted] »

exratione wrote: post #15
rgejman wrote: post #5

We already have crowd funding for science. We do it as a whole society when we fund the various grant-giving agencies in this country. I cannot emphasize how bad of an idea it is to take funding decisions away from professional scientists and place them in the hands of untrained individuals, no matter how enthusiastic they may be nor how much money they are willing to throw away.

This displays a profound ignorance of the real situation, which is that the majority of useful early stage research is funded by philanthropy. Not by government, not by companies, but by people making donations. It doesn't come from the existing funding institutions because they almost never fund anything that hasn't already had its prototype and early stage research completed successfully. If you don't have your pro…

[deleted]

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#22

Post by skosuri »

exratione wrote: post #15
rgejman wrote: post #5

We already have crowd funding for science. We do it as a whole society when we fund the various grant-giving agencies in this country. I cannot emphasize how bad of an idea it is to take funding decisions away from professional scientists and place them in the hands of untrained individuals, no matter how enthusiastic they may be nor how much money they are willing to throw away.

This displays a profound ignorance of the real situation, which is that the majority of useful early stage research is funded by philanthropy. Not by government, not by companies, but by people making donations. It doesn't come from the existing funding institutions because they almost never fund anything that hasn't already had its prototype and early stage research completed successfully. If you don't have your pro…

> the majority of useful early stage research is funded by philanthropy

Really? Is there a source for this?

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#24

Post by zobzu »

ig1 wrote: post #14

People don't seem to realize how expensive it is to bring a new pharmaceutical drug to market and why this approach won't work. A typical drug will cost between $1bn-$2bn and take about a decade of work by the time it hits the shelves. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_development has details for those interested) Crowdfunding at those sort of levels just isn't feasible yet.

It actually says millions of USD or billions. ie not necessarily 1 billion+

I'm also wondering/suspecting these costs are very much tied to the USA which has a pretty specific model and costs involved.

I wouldn't be surprised if the development, of similar quality, would be much cheaper outside the USA.

(yes i have noticed this guy is crowdfunding from the USA)

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#25

Post by 31reasons »

protonfish wrote: post #23

What I don't understand is why drugs developed with public money (government grants and non-profit charities) aren't automatically in the public domain.

You need public money to help innovation but you still need individual's greed to make it happen. Would you spend your entire lifetime building something and you get nothing in return other than pat on your back ?

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#26

Post by mikeryan »

protonfish wrote: post #23

What I don't understand is why drugs developed with public money (government grants and non-profit charities) aren't automatically in the public domain.

Because the profits from those drugs can be used to fund new drug therapies as well. Same reason as private companies. I'd prefer the drugs are made available to anyone who needs them at a reasonable rate (maybe a sliding scale based on income?) then making those discoveries public domain.

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#27

Post by dnautics »

ig1 wrote: post #14

People don't seem to realize how expensive it is to bring a new pharmaceutical drug to market and why this approach won't work. A typical drug will cost between $1bn-$2bn and take about a decade of work by the time it hits the shelves. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_development has details for those interested) Crowdfunding at those sort of levels just isn't feasible yet.

That's like saying it takes 7 billion to make a company that competes with facebook, and you'll never get 7 billion series A funding. Trivially true, but to compete with facebook is a process, and not all stages of a process use the same funding mechanisms.

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#28

Post by pinaceae »

zobzu wrote: post #24
ig1 wrote: post #14

People don't seem to realize how expensive it is to bring a new pharmaceutical drug to market and why this approach won't work. A typical drug will cost between $1bn-$2bn and take about a decade of work by the time it hits the shelves. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_development has details for those interested) Crowdfunding at those sort of levels just isn't feasible yet.

It actually says millions of USD or billions. ie not necessarily 1 billion+ I'm also wondering/suspecting these costs are very much tied to the USA which has a pretty specific model and costs involved. I wouldn't be surprised if the development, of similar quality, would be much cheaper outside the USA. (yes i have noticed this guy is crowdfunding from the USA)

still needs to be approved by the FDA, as the rest of the world is using this for guidance.

majority of drug development is not the actual science work, but tons of paperwork and audit trails. as history has proven if you play fast and loose here a lot of people will be hurt or killed.

you need to document every step along the way. and once clinical trials start, the scrutiny increases, a lot.

there is a now a fast track for very promising breakthrough drugs, but getting this designation is very hard and relies on proven, documented science.

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#29

Post by dnautics »

jonlucc wrote: post #16
ig1 wrote: post #14

People don't seem to realize how expensive it is to bring a new pharmaceutical drug to market and why this approach won't work. A typical drug will cost between $1bn-$2bn and take about a decade of work by the time it hits the shelves. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_development has details for those interested) Crowdfunding at those sort of levels just isn't feasible yet.

Worse, I fear that cancer patients and their loved ones will get overly enthusiastic about this. Then, when they donate tons of money and it fails, they are out money, time, and a drug. This is the reason pharmaceutical companies are cautious about contacting patient advocacy groups.

Good point. This is something i wrestled with. It's very likely this will fail (for both social and scientific reasons). At the very least though if it fails for scientific reasons, since experiments will be openly disclosed (unlike the siloed process at pharma r&d) - we will learn something - even if that something is "don't try making this drug again".
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