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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

#71

Post by danielweber »

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?

"Early stage research" is such a wacky term you haven't a hope of getting that nailed down.

If you sit down like a serious person and look at a well-defined question, like "where do drugs that end up being administered to patients start their existence?", you get

58% from pharmaceutical companies.

18% from biotech companies.

16% from universities, transferred to biotech.

8% from universities, transferred to pharma.

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/11/04/where_drugs_...

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#72

Post by irollboozers »

collyw wrote: post #44
jonlucc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ava…

You can't really blame them, Kickstarter is composed of artists, not scientists.

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#73

Post by danielweber »

korzun wrote: post #49
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.

It's the Galileo Gambit: they laughed at him, they laugh at me, therefore I'll be proven later to be right!

Or,

"The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." -- Sagan

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#74

Post by eschutte2 »

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.

You have a lot more faith in insiders, schmoozers and career bureaucrats than I do. I personally favor the dartboard approach.

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#75

Post by aangjie »

dnautics wrote: post #64
collyw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there not public grants available it this stage?

Short answer is. I'm not a faculty in a university since I tried and choose not to try any longer. I'm not in pharma because of patents. So getting a public grant is hard. It's even harder because my old boss is now in charge of the relevant funding stream and she shouldn't be working with grants that further her former avenue of research.

> It's even harder because my old boss is now in charge of the relevant funding stream and she shouldn't be working with grants that further her former avenue of research.

That's one very depressing thought. I understand her reasons, but I see the existence of them as a failure in getting all of us to a rational society. All the best. I'll contribute, what I can.

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#76

Post by aangjie »

tmuir wrote: post #69
korzun wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only HN somebody will compare cancer drugs to Pebble.

Compare, contrast, whats the difference?

I would say, contrast focuses only on the difference between the entities being contrasted, while compare can mean, you also focus on the similarities. Not sure, how you use the words, though.

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#77

Post by Gatsky »

I think the negative comments on here have got it upside down. I research and treat cancer, and I think this is great. The fact that it costs billions to develop a drug is why we should support novel pathways of organising drug development, rather than disparaging it.

It may not really be obvious from the outside, but there is a coming crisis in that we won't as a society be able to afford new cancer drugs. It is regularly reported that new drugs which are typically priced around US$120k per year (for multiple years in some cases) are not cost effective. Case in point: crizotonib. This is a drug that works very well at shrinking tumours and controlling disease in incurable lung cancer. It is targeted - it only works if your tumour has a particular gene fusion, which occurs in about 4% of lung cancer patients. It is well tolerated compared to chemotherapy. It's the kind of personalised medicine we are hoping to achieve more broadly in the future. And the way it is priced isn't cost effective [1].

I can guarantee you that the coming surge in immunotherapies will be exorbitantly priced. And these are drugs we will be giving not to 4% of cancer patients, but > 50% of advanced cancer patients in a given tumour type.

These problems are even worse in countries where the government pays for drugs, because they are far more restricted in what they can afford. Patients just end up missing out. And if you think having cancer is bad enough, knowing there is a drug that might help and not being able to afford it is just heart breaking.

So good luck to them, I hope they can draw some money away from nonsense like crowd funding potato salad.

[1] http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/early/2014/02/24/JCO.2013.53...

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#78

Post by refurb »

jonlucc wrote: post #19
exratione wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to crowdfund any more than it costs to convince a group with $1bn that they can make money on this by spending that to commercialize your demonstration. That is often just a few million, or even less, depending on how compelling your data and how good your connections. Most of that $1bn and decade of time is make-work created by ever more risk-averse regulators. The actual process of creating something…

Wouldn't a group with $1bn to spend want a patent to ensure they would get a return on that money?

That's what I don't get. Sure you could crowdfund a few preclinical experiments. But where do you get the ~$100M to get it approved? It would be awesome if someone said "here's $100M, don't worry about paying me back", but I wouldn't count on it.

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#79

Post by tmuir »

aangjie wrote: post #76
tmuir wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare, contrast, whats the difference?

I would say, contrast focuses only on the difference between the entities being contrasted, while compare can mean, you also focus on the similarities. Not sure, how you use the words, though.

It was a sarcastic remark. My original comment's gist was that all of the naysayers, at least with respect to the amount of funding required, are basing their analysis on a faulty assumption. So far, we've seen a very narrow niche of people, with very specific interests, fund successful kickstarters on the order of $1,000,000 to $10,000,000. In _contrast_, the demographic of people that would likely be interested in funding cancer research is potentially 1,000 to 10,000 times larger than the 18-35 year old, white American male STEM worker with disposable income and a poor understanding of the realities of electronics manufacturing demographic.

Thus, $1,000,000,000 is not unreasonable at all.

Re: San Diego Researcher Crowdfunding Patent-Free Cancer Drug

#80

Post by thefreeman »

dnautics wrote: post #67
ig1 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the plan for the rest of the money, grants ?

Grants and big donors to push through preclinical and a for profit partner for clinical is my vision, but I am open minded to alternatives.

Doesn't that fall apart when the for profit partner needs to pay the other $990 million dollars and then still cannot patent the drug?
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