this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2024
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Capitalism or not the claim would be true, chronic diseases are defined by their lack of effective cure.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Crispr is the exception:
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.
Here it is straight from the horses mouth that pharmaceutical companies aren't trying to cure diseases, and are instead aiming for a subscription model where you have to keep paying them to stay alive.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ. They’re not just arguing against curing chronic illnesses, they’re arguing against curing infectious chronic illnesses because it creates less patients to extort in the long run. That is one of the most heinous things I’ve seen put to paper.