5 ms·

Very interesting. Anyone know if this applies to antibiotics? I think a lot of people, myself included, are hoping that new drugs will buy us enough time to so

by nxc18 9y ago

Very interesting. Anyone know if this applies to antibiotics? I think a lot of people, myself included, are hoping that new drugs will buy us enough time to solve the sociatal problems (e.g. heavy use in ag) causing antibiotic resistance.

ShannonAlther 9y ago
Yes, it does. More or less every class of antibiotic was invented between 1940 and 1960. Discoveries since that period have been mostly incremental.
- haZard_OS 9y ago
  The only exception I am aware of is this recent discovery : https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14098 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14098 Note that the paper isn't only about a new antibiotic but also about a promising method for making additional discoveries via uncultured bacteria.
  - ShannonAlther 9y ago
    Teixobactin, I assume? Their new method of parallel testing promising proto-antibiotics is really neat, but given the ratio of successes to failures, I wouldn't hold out much hope for a second golden age.
  - 88e282102ae2e5b 9y ago
    Also this: http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)31451-4 http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)31451-4
- alpos 9y ago
  Possibly irrelevant correlation: This is pattern is also observed in graphics techniques and programming styles. Yet, the incremental quantitative advances continue to accumulate to become qualitative differences.
  - Bluestrike2 9y ago
    While modifications of existing classes of antibiotics are still critically important and useful, the big problem is that "new antibiotics that conform to established classes are often subject to at least some of the same resistances observed in previous members of the class."[0] They help in that they buy time, but development of novel classes of antibiotics is what's necessary to buy more time. And we're going to need a lot of them.[1] In engineering or any scientific field, incremental progress is clearly still progress. For most other kinds of drugs, time doesn't work against their effectiveness. Texts describe the use of aspirin precursors, such as willow teas, dates back over four thousand years to ancient Sumer. Salicylates haven't stopped being effective since then. The trouble with antibiotics is that resistance inevitably develops over time even if we manage to curb their misuse. It isn't enough to enough to develop new antibiotics, novel or otherwise; to keep the "miracle of antibiotics" alive, we need to continually to develop novel ones. 0. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4159373/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4159373/ 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3085877 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3085877
    - alpos 9y ago
      >we need to continually to develop novel ones That hits pretty close to what I think I am seeing here. There are a few assumptions built in to Eroom's "law" which I think we have learned to avoid when looking at Moore's "law". One is that we will not come up with an alternate or more effective way to address the problems drugs are currently addressing. Another is that we will not come up with a drastically cheaper or more effective way to invent new novel drugs. Still another is that we will not invent a drastically cheaper or more effective way to verify a drug's usefulness and safety. With Moore's observation, I think people have learned to assume that any observable slow down will be corrected by the invention of some previously unimaginable technique or other machine that will keep things on track. (nothing really makes this have to be true, but we seem to think of it that way) Similarly, any number of future inventions could completely reverse Eroom's observation. As we get better at editing genomes, making nanomachines, and increasing the resolution of 3d printers, previously impossible techniques may suddenly make it easy to invent novel drugs, address the same issues without drugs, or change the game in any number of other hard-to-predict ways. Given these increasingly plausible possibilities, I am inclined to see Eroom's "law" as the mere observation of a relatively short lived trend in human history.
rcthompson 9y ago
Yes, and in addition, I believe antibiotics are currently considered by pharma companies insufficiently profitable to dedicate significant resources to. They're mainly going after chronic conditions now, since chronic means steady income stream.
- tensecondflash 9y ago
  The fact that pharma is still developing new vaccines belies the suggestion that they aren’t working on cures. But, yes, antibiotics are a bit of a niche field.
danieltillett 9y ago
While agricultural use is a problem, we have resistance problems even with classes of antibiotics that are never used in agriculture. The problem with antibiotic resistance is economic, not scientific. There is no incentive to develop new antibiotics (or tweaks of existing antibiotics that overcome resistance) under our current regulatory system.
sgt101 9y ago
I think that the better than the beatles bit might give way in this case. I'm no medic but I suspect that there are many antibiotic compounds that have failed early trials due to side effects that might be resurrected in a context where 10,000's of people a year die due to resistance. I think that the regulator might get much less cautious and the fact that the old drugs don't work may make things easier. Also at the moment one issue is that the market for anti-resistant drugs is very small, and current antibiotics are rather cheap. So the spreadsheets show no business case, when this grows to millions of doses a year then at $1k a dose so $10k a course and over 20 years of patent life a $2bn investment starts to look ok. State intervention should be used to shorten and cheapen that path so that we get less of the actual death without real need business up front. I read with dismay the FP9 preparation reports which stress cohesion as an objective of research funding and I look forward (grimly) to watching the waste of funds that could lead to life saving treatment that this policy will precipitate.

by nxc18 9y ago

ShannonAlther 9y ago

Yes, it does. More or less every class of antibiotic was invented between 1940 and 1960. Discoveries since that period have been mostly incremental.

haZard_OS 9y ago
The only exception I am aware of is this recent discovery : https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14098 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14098 Note that the paper isn't only about a new antibiotic but also about a promising method for making additional discoveries via uncultured bacteria.
- ShannonAlther 9y ago
  Teixobactin, I assume? Their new method of parallel testing promising proto-antibiotics is really neat, but given the ratio of successes to failures, I wouldn't hold out much hope for a second golden age.
- 88e282102ae2e5b 9y ago
  Also this: http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)31451-4 http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)31451-4
alpos 9y ago
Possibly irrelevant correlation: This is pattern is also observed in graphics techniques and programming styles. Yet, the incremental quantitative advances continue to accumulate to become qualitative differences.
- Bluestrike2 9y ago
  While modifications of existing classes of antibiotics are still critically important and useful, the big problem is that "new antibiotics that conform to established classes are often subject to at least some of the same resistances observed in previous members of the class."[0] They help in that they buy time, but development of novel classes of antibiotics is what's necessary to buy more time. And we're going to need a lot of them.[1] In engineering or any scientific field, incremental progress is clearly still progress. For most other kinds of drugs, time doesn't work against their effectiveness. Texts describe the use of aspirin precursors, such as willow teas, dates back over four thousand years to ancient Sumer. Salicylates haven't stopped being effective since then. The trouble with antibiotics is that resistance inevitably develops over time even if we manage to curb their misuse. It isn't enough to enough to develop new antibiotics, novel or otherwise; to keep the "miracle of antibiotics" alive, we need to continually to develop novel ones. 0. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4159373/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4159373/ 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3085877 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3085877
  - alpos 9y ago
    >we need to continually to develop novel ones That hits pretty close to what I think I am seeing here. There are a few assumptions built in to Eroom's "law" which I think we have learned to avoid when looking at Moore's "law". One is that we will not come up with an alternate or more effective way to address the problems drugs are currently addressing. Another is that we will not come up with a drastically cheaper or more effective way to invent new novel drugs. Still another is that we will not invent a drastically cheaper or more effective way to verify a drug's usefulness and safety. With Moore's observation, I think people have learned to assume that any observable slow down will be corrected by the invention of some previously unimaginable technique or other machine that will keep things on track. (nothing really makes this have to be true, but we seem to think of it that way) Similarly, any number of future inventions could completely reverse Eroom's observation. As we get better at editing genomes, making nanomachines, and increasing the resolution of 3d printers, previously impossible techniques may suddenly make it easy to invent novel drugs, address the same issues without drugs, or change the game in any number of other hard-to-predict ways. Given these increasingly plausible possibilities, I am inclined to see Eroom's "law" as the mere observation of a relatively short lived trend in human history.

rcthompson 9y ago

Yes, and in addition, I believe antibiotics are currently considered by pharma companies insufficiently profitable to dedicate significant resources to. They're mainly going after chronic conditions now, since chronic means steady income stream.

tensecondflash 9y ago
The fact that pharma is still developing new vaccines belies the suggestion that they aren’t working on cures. But, yes, antibiotics are a bit of a niche field.

danieltillett 9y ago

While agricultural use is a problem, we have resistance problems even with classes of antibiotics that are never used in agriculture. The problem with antibiotic resistance is economic, not scientific. There is no incentive to develop new antibiotics (or tweaks of existing antibiotics that overcome resistance) under our current regulatory system.

sgt101 9y ago

I think that the better than the beatles bit might give way in this case. I'm no medic but I suspect that there are many antibiotic compounds that have failed early trials due to side effects that might be resurrected in a context where 10,000's of people a year die due to resistance. I think that the regulator might get much less cautious and the fact that the old drugs don't work may make things easier. Also at the moment one issue is that the market for anti-resistant drugs is very small, and current antibiotics are rather cheap. So the spreadsheets show no business case, when this grows to millions of doses a year then at $1k a dose so $10k a course and over 20 years of patent life a $2bn investment starts to look ok. State intervention should be used to shorten and cheapen that path so that we get less of the actual death without real need business up front. I read with dismay the FP9 preparation reports which stress cohesion as an objective of research funding and I look forward (grimly) to watching the waste of funds that could lead to life saving treatment that this policy will precipitate.