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Originally Posted by Thor
Well its only down to a small number of huge companies that are making this these days, the focus is on drugs that are prescription since its such a huge return on investment vs a vaccine that might prove ineffective or not pass trials.
Its also the same thinking for them in regards to anti-biotics, very expensive to research, very little return and a host of other problems like them being used too much which increases the rate at which they become useless. This is becoming a big problem.
That article sure seems to indicate otherwise however, 300 sounds like a significant number, I wonder how that compares to say 10 years ago.
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Exactly this. I had a very interesting lecture last year about the business of pharmaceuticals by a Novartis rep, went through the economics of developing Vaccines and antibiotics, and how the return is just not there, making it very difficult for any company to invest in research for it. Even when you do research and develop an effective vaccine, it may never make it to market. For example, VIDO in Saskatchewan has an E. coli vaccine that never became marketable since it wasn't economical for ranchers to buy a vaccine for a disease that doesn't affect the health of the cattle. It's cheaper for them to just continue with sanitary slaughtering and processing practices than it is to vaccinate.
Same thing goes with antibiotics. Drugs such as Cefixime don't make companies money, as it's a one time dose drug, compare that to statins where you have a population that will take the medicine the rest of their life, and it's no wonder you have 10 new cholesterol regulating drugs come out every year yet see no innovation with antibiotics in the past 10 years.
Also, in regards to that article, 300 in the pipeline means nothing, every company has research in different stages for 100s of drugs that will never see the light of day. It's a long an rigorous process to go from developing to actual production and distribution, out of those 300 probably 5 will even make it to human trials.