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There are a few things that cause me serious frustration. One is when a lay person will talk about medicine. Making drugs is a ridiculous process. I had the pl
by Medicalidiot 6y ago
There are a few things that cause me serious frustration. One is when a lay person will talk about medicine.
Making drugs is a ridiculous process. I had the pleasure of listening to a physical chemist describe every single step it took for his team at Abbott labs to take Lopinavir/ritonavir to market. It is incredible how difficult it is to go from novel molecule to phase IV. Every single thing he did he had to, by FDA guidelines, be written and documented appropriately. Everything is highly scrutinized. With medicine we need to be right and we need strong scrutiny, because when there isn't oversight shortcuts are made. That's just the federal guidelines, the chemistry behind drug production, and this is something I find interesting but strongly dislike the amount of math behind physical chemistry, is intimidating. Some of the questions that need to be answered are: Does this molecule affect any enzyme? Is this enzyme hypothesized to be in a disease process? What is the structure of this molecule? How is it made? How can we make more? How can we make more more efficiently? Does this drug work in people? What's the dose that needs to be given to have an effect? What is the dosing ranges for a given drug? What are the serious side effects? What are the moderate/mild side effect? How is this drug cleared/excreted? Are there certain populations which this is contraindicated in?
These are some of the main questions that are answered when taking a drug to market, which is why it usually takes 10 years and billions to go from novel molecule to FDA approved drug.
- phonon 6y agoThe people who wrote the article are not lay people.
- Medicalidiot 6y agoBoth are involved in discovering novel drug targets, but not in bringing drugs to market. I know a significant amount of individuals in medical research that don't know the nuances behind bringing drugs to market.
- phonon 6y agoNice goal-post moving. Maybe you're the lay person? Med school doesn't qualify you to opine about novel therapeutics.
- Medicalidiot 6y agoMy best friend is working on novel targets for hepatocellular carcinoma. Does he know science? Yes. Does he know how to bring a drug to market? God no. Everyone outside of your field is a lay person. >Med school doesn't qualify you to opine about novel therapeutics Actually, it does. Especially when we tried hydroxychloroquine and it didn't work. When you go to a hospital with medical students 60% of the time our recommendation to the attending is what the care plan ends up being.
- aSplash0fDerp 6y agoHey. Medical layman here. Just had the pleasure of watching both of Robert Lustig`s lectures on fructose back to back this week. Are you sure the medical industry as a whole is not stupid? It doesn`t really resemble healthcare from many of the angles. (I agree that brilliant minds make the world go round, but being complicated is not one of their signatures)
- aSplash0fDerp 6y agoYeah, this was a a little off topic. Thanks for the DV`s I still don`t think high-fiving lepers on their good arm while the rest of their body rots is the PR view they were going for, but, it is what it is.