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If the alternative medicine is widely known, you won't be able to get a patent on it. Without a patent you won't be able to make a profit. Without a profit th
by mark-r 6y ago
If the alternative medicine is widely known, you won't be able to get a patent on it. Without a patent you won't be able to make a profit. Without a profit there's no incentive to spend the enormous money required for a randomized controlled trial.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoBut if the alternative medicine is widely known to work, it means the effect is powerful enough that a cheap RCT done at a local medical university should be more than enough to demonstrate it. If it can't, then frankly, you don't really know it works.
- mark-r 6y agoThe point is that without a monetary payout at the end, you're going to have trouble incentivizing someone to do the study no matter how cheap it is. And don't forget the opposite, if there's a current medical treatment for the condition you're testing they will try to block you at every step.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoYou can pester scientists, they have their own separate set of perverted incentives - academic status - which, in this case, works in your favor. As for the opposite case - if there was a thing you wanted to test that had a strong effect, then the company that owns the current treatment would happily fund you the tests in exchange for dibs if the tests pans out.
- mark-r 6y agoDid you read my GP comment? The dibs don't do you any good unless you can get a patent on the new treatment.
- Talanes 6y agoCountries with socialized healthcare would be well incentivized to fund these studies.
- hnick 6y agoAnd PhD students need to write papers.