• mearce@programming.dev
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    7 days ago

    Capitalism or not the claim would be true, chronic diseases are defined by their lack of effective cure.

    • Neurologist@mander.xyz
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      7 days ago

      Completely true. But there would be fewer of them.

      It’s crazy that when my research team comes up with a therapeutic target we believe might lead to curing a disease, we get crickets from drug companies. But when we present therapeutic targets for long term treatment, we get lots of interest.

      • betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Could that be (at least partially) explained by those companies looking at a long-term treatment as the more realistic goal after being burned by proposed cures in the past? Lots of quacks out there offer a quick cure, not as many say up front that their product will need a prolonged period of use. Not saying you and yours fit that label but their bullshit tips the signal-to-noise ratio in an unfavorable direction for both relief-seekers and providers.

        I don’t know your field, team’s reputation or the companies you’ve been in contact with though so of course it could be the simple greed motivation too.

        • Neurologist@mander.xyz
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          7 days ago

          That’s the lenient interpretation I’d hope.

          But we’re not an alternative medicine group or anything. If you look into their shareholder meetings the public info seems to be that they judge whether investments are worth it by potential return on investment, and well a lifelong treatment is always going to be more profitable for them than a cure.

          • somethingsnappy@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            To be fair, and it’s still bullshit, we also look at number of patients per week per cost. Crispr for example, could be used for a huge variety of issues, but curing 100 people globally for $100M in clinical development is just not going to work.

            • Neurologist@mander.xyz
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              6 days ago

              Crispr is the exception:

              1. it’s massively expensive
              2. it can cure multiple illnesses and perform loads of other functions

              Most proposals for cures are a fairly simple (and cheap) therapeutic target that will only work for one condition or even just a subset of cases within that condition.