3 ms·

>The top 5 global pharma companies spent 42 billion USD on R&D in 2015 alone But how much of that spend was actually targeted at curing diseases, versus things

>The top 5 global pharma companies spent 42 billion USD on R&D in 2015 alone But how much of that spend was actually targeted at curing diseases, versus things like hair loss treatments, erectile dysfunction, type 2 diabetes, or other first world problems? It's well known that big pharma corps generally ignore the low hanging fruit of curable third world diseases because there is no monetary incentive for it. See why there was no viable Ebola vaccine until the latest outbreak, even though we've been dealing with it for decades.

vegabook 10y ago
If you look at pharma company R&D, they know where their bread is buttered: people who are at risk of death are much bigger spenders than brunettes wanting to be blondes. 70%+ of pharma R&D goes towards life-prolonging research.
HaloZero 10y ago
I think that means they were working on it weren't they? I doubt the Ebola outbreak timeline was enough to warrant the research to figure it out. They probably already had projects going but suddenly they got a lot more attention through regulations to get it to market faster.
Fomite 10y ago
While we've been dealing with Ebola for decades, it was characterized as both a highly sporadic and largely self-limiting disease, and not particularly endemic. Horrible as it is, that's not a great target for a vaccine. Especially not an expensive, hard to administer one. So it remained largely of academic and specialized interest. The recent Ebola outbreak was a recontextualization of Ebola, from a sometimes scary disease where it would be handy to have an infrequently used vaccine for special circumstances to "This might be an endemic disease in West Africa". Yes, throwing money at it helped, but it's hardly the only reason priorities shifted. I'll also note that there's promising work on Dengue Fever vaccines, which are third world diseases, and most of the diseases that are near-term eradication targets are third world diseases. Often these challenges aren't "Pharma hasn't developed a drug yet" but "How do we get this drug to everyone?"

vegabook 10y ago

If you look at pharma company R&D, they know where their bread is buttered: people who are at risk of death are much bigger spenders than brunettes wanting to be blondes. 70%+ of pharma R&D goes towards life-prolonging research.

HaloZero 10y ago

I think that means they were working on it weren't they? I doubt the Ebola outbreak timeline was enough to warrant the research to figure it out. They probably already had projects going but suddenly they got a lot more attention through regulations to get it to market faster.

Fomite 10y ago

While we've been dealing with Ebola for decades, it was characterized as both a highly sporadic and largely self-limiting disease, and not particularly endemic. Horrible as it is, that's not a great target for a vaccine. Especially not an expensive, hard to administer one. So it remained largely of academic and specialized interest. The recent Ebola outbreak was a recontextualization of Ebola, from a sometimes scary disease where it would be handy to have an infrequently used vaccine for special circumstances to "This might be an endemic disease in West Africa". Yes, throwing money at it helped, but it's hardly the only reason priorities shifted. I'll also note that there's promising work on Dengue Fever vaccines, which are third world diseases, and most of the diseases that are near-term eradication targets are third world diseases. Often these challenges aren't "Pharma hasn't developed a drug yet" but "How do we get this drug to everyone?"