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The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

motherboard.vice.com

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Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#51

Post by tzs »

darawk wrote: post #33
_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Because exorbitant profit is the only motivation for research.

Someone has to buy the lab equipment and pay the scientists. If you think their profit is 'exorbitant', then you should be investing in pharma. But historically and as a whole, they generate returns comparable to the rest of industry.

For all but one of the specific drugs mentioned in the article, the lab equipment and scientists were paid for a long long time ago.

One is a common hormone produced in the human body that was isolated over 120 years ago and has been used for medicinal purposes almost as long.

Another was discovered in 1952 and has been used in medicine since 1953.

Another was patented in 1961 and approved by the FDA in 1971.

The two related to abortion were developed in 1973 and 1980, respectively.

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#52

Post by Hasz »

darawk wrote: post #12

> Indeed, Laufer and his collaborators can’t stop pissing off powerful people because Four Thieves is living proof that effective medicines can be developed on a budget outside of institutional channels. Synthesized. Not developed. Synthesizing medicines is easy. Developing them is extremely difficult.

Eh, it's not as simple. From what it looks like, they're not just copying syntheses from the patent application. With this Chematica data, it seems like they were pursuing novel syntheses for a variety of drugs in order to minimize side product formation or make the synthesis easier, which is an impressive feat.

That being said, they aren't running clinical trials or evaluating drug efficacy, which is another difficult part of drug development.

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#53

Post by gowld »

darawk wrote: post #33
_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Because exorbitant profit is the only motivation for research.

Someone has to buy the lab equipment and pay the scientists. If you think their profit is 'exorbitant', then you should be investing in pharma. But historically and as a whole, they generate returns comparable to the rest of industry.

> If you think their profit is 'exorbitant', then you should be investing in pharma.

is not necessarily true. Expected future returns are already priced into stock of incumbents.

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#54

Post by gowld »

jdietrich wrote: post #37
darawk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. Let's imagine a world where he achieves his dream. We've democratized access to molecular synthesis with no quality issues. Anyone, anywhere can safely and effectively produce any medicine of their choosing, without regard for IP laws. Now what? Well, on the one hand, everyone on earth will have cheap, timely access to every medicine that currently exists. That's pretty awesome. On the other hand, who's going to…

A large proportion of pharmaceutical development is funded (directly or indirectly) by public funds. There's a very strong argument that single-payer healthcare systems should issue a blanket moratorium on buying new patented medicines and direct the funds to research. Major pharmaceutical companies spend significantly more on marketing than on R&D, so it'd be a net win for the taxpayer if they just paid for drug dev…

Nice idea. Why don't single-payer healthcare systems (the ones who are already enlightened, compared to the backward USA, right?) fund that research today?

If pharma geniuses couldn't make a fortune in pharma, would they work for the government on the Federal wage scale, or would they go to coding bootcamp (which they could easily thrive at, based on the biochem->coding converts I know) and go work for Facebook?

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#56

Post by ceejayoz »

gowld wrote: post #54
jdietrich wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large proportion of pharmaceutical development is funded (directly or indirectly) by public funds. There's a very strong argument that single-payer healthcare systems should issue a blanket moratorium on buying new patented medicines and direct the funds to research. Major pharmaceutical companies spend significantly more on marketing than on R&D, so it'd be a net win for the taxpayer if they just paid for drug dev…

Nice idea. Why don't single-payer healthcare systems (the ones who are already enlightened, compared to the backward USA, right?) fund that research today ? If pharma geniuses couldn't make a fortune in pharma, would they work for the government on the Federal wage scale, or would they go to coding bootcamp (which they could easily thrive at, based on the biochem->coding converts I know) and go work for Facebook?

> Nice idea. Why don't single-payer healthcare systems (the ones who are already enlightened, compared to the backward USA, right?) fund that research today?

They (and even our multi-payer system) already do. See: Public universities, NIH grants, etc.

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#57

Post by 34k5uoi5ui »

gowld wrote: post #54
jdietrich wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large proportion of pharmaceutical development is funded (directly or indirectly) by public funds. There's a very strong argument that single-payer healthcare systems should issue a blanket moratorium on buying new patented medicines and direct the funds to research. Major pharmaceutical companies spend significantly more on marketing than on R&D, so it'd be a net win for the taxpayer if they just paid for drug dev…

Nice idea. Why don't single-payer healthcare systems (the ones who are already enlightened, compared to the backward USA, right?) fund that research today ? If pharma geniuses couldn't make a fortune in pharma, would they work for the government on the Federal wage scale, or would they go to coding bootcamp (which they could easily thrive at, based on the biochem->coding converts I know) and go work for Facebook?

because some people want to save lives, rather then enslaving them. If you think working at facebook is the pinnacle of human achievement, I respectfully request you consider where we are, and how many humans around you are suffering.

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#59

Post by Something1234 »

agotterer wrote: post #28

Michaels first HOPE talk in 2016 is really worth watching - https://archive.org/details/livestream-130731041 . I was at his 2018 talk and the Vice article did an excellent job of summing it up. Usually the HOPE videos come online a few weeks after the conference (it was last weekend).

I was there too. I loved his talk, but I didn't get a good picture of the file hash or link he wanted us to download.

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#60

Post by JshWright »

briandear wrote: post #43
robbiep wrote: post #38

An interesting approach to the criminal lack of healthcare to vulnerable populations in the US (and potentially other places with third world health systems)

Is there actually a criminal lack of medical care? What is Medicaid? Tens of billions of dollars are going to help nobody?

Medicaid is great[1], but it serves a relatively small fraction of the population. I assume the parent comment is referring to the fact that most other developed nations provide universal healthcare, at lower per capita cost, with better outcomes and doctor/patient satisfaction ratings.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx1-X9wpUk4

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