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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

#41

Post by moyix »

skosuri wrote: post #22
exratione wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I believe they're referring to this: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1431

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#42

Post by unclebunkers »

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.

Any time someone says something won't work, what they should be saying is "No one has figured out how to make this work yet".

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#43

Post by lumberjack »

dnautics wrote: post #6
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.

Here is a quote that my experience in science has caused me to resonate with. "I think there's been a Gresham's Law in science funding in this country, as the political people who are nimble in the art of writing government grants have gradually displaced the eccentric and idiosyncratic people who typically make the best scientists. The eccentric university professor is a species that is going extinct fast." - Peter…

Exactly what I thought when seeing the video. I don't want scientific funding to go to those who manage to produce the best quality 3 minute promotional video.

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#44

Post by collyw »

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.

I would like to think that the existing funding of research has mechanisms in place to fund the "best" types of research, which makes me ask why the need for crowd funding? It sounds cool initially but having seen some nonsense that was crowd funded I am not so sure.

http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/39456/the-z-torqu...

The article talks about the research being patent free, but surely there are options available to fund research that allow this, or am I wrong?

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#45

Post by collyw »

dnautics wrote: post #31
pinaceae wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

This is exactly why I'm only interested in crowdfunding a single, early stage, experiment.

Are there not public grants available it this stage?

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#46

Post by Kalium »

adamt wrote: post #35
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.

I will freely admit I know very little about the pharmaceutical world, but my (perhaps dumb) question is what scope is there to disrupt these typical costs. For example it used to be that space programs cost billions, yet India has just put a Mars orbital in place for $74m. I am old enough to remember when it was the received wisdom that people believed an e-commerce website would cost $1m, yet many startups launch t…

If you can always be right about every drug, every time, at every stage, then perhaps quite a bit. Of course, multiple years of trials is still going to be very expensive.

A lot of the costs seem to be linked to the fact that failures are common at every stage. Which is why there is a lot of time, money, and energy being put into reducing failure rates.

There's not an easy "insert disruption here" point.

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#47

Post by chc »

unclebunkers wrote: post #42
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.

Any time someone says something won't work, what they should be saying is "No one has figured out how to make this work yet".

Unless you're asserting that you have figured it out, I don't understand why you'd point this out.

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#48

Post by vvvv »

dnautics wrote: post #27
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.

Would you like to sign up for a buggy minimum viable drug treatment?

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#49

Post by korzun »

tmuir wrote: post #38

To everyone sure this will fail because of the amount of money required, ask yourself this: if you told your mom, and your neighbor, and your mailman, and your boss about the Occulus Rift, or Pebble, or The Peachy Printer, or Zach Braff's latest movie, and the opportunity to help make those products a reality by preordering them/donating money to them, do you really think any sizable portion of those people would be…

Only HN somebody will compare cancer drugs to Pebble.

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#50

Post by unclebunkers »

chc wrote: post #47
unclebunkers wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any time someone says something won't work, what they should be saying is "No one has figured out how to make this work yet".

Unless you're asserting that you have figured it out, I don't understand why you'd point this out.

Because I hate the negativity.
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