4 ms·

Sporination is a really great strategy (except when you're a human and don't want C Diff). A highly resistant way to disseminate DNA, even, if necessary, over

by gumby 3y ago

Sporination is a really great strategy (except when you're a human and don't want C Diff). A highly resistant way to disseminate DNA, even, if necessary, over extremely long timescales (hundreds of ky at least, probably my). I worked on a drug program against a pathogen that was transmitted as spores. Basically the treatment was given when there was a flare up, because the organism was only vulnerable in that mode. We tried killing the spores themselves but evan at toxic-to-human doses the spores didn't give a shit. So people would get better, then have further outbreaks. Note that from a drug company's perspective, this is actually pretty great. You don't treat them for long enough that it's considered a "chronic condition" from a regulatory perspective (which would mean much more complex trial protocols) yet you know if you treat anyone you'll have a repeat customer, probably for the rest of their lives. But despite public opinion of pharma companies, I never heard anyone say "thank you spores!" In fact we did continue to try to attack the spores.

imdsm 3y ago
Could you share the name of the illness/pathogen? Very curious.
whatshisface 3y ago
As long as there is more than one pharma company, there's an incentive to cure chronic conditions because you'll take all of your competitor's business away and can charge a price equal to the lifetime costs of the chronic treatment.
- zer00eyz 3y ago
  An efficient market is characterized by a perfect, complete, costless, and instant transmission of information... You have conflated your incentive (a cure) with people who make and sell treatments (maximize profits). As long as there are Pharma companies, there is incentive to make slightly better treatments. That is same effect lower production cost, or same cost and better effect. It kind of sad that treatements have gone from prescription to subscription.
  - Grimblewald 3y ago
    Everything is going the way of subscriptions. Ill probably be in subscription housing the rest of my life unless there is a crash in the property market.
    - selcuka 3y ago
      Housing has always been a subscription, you can't really technically own your house (try not paying your land tax).
  - shoubidouwah 3y ago
    Just wanted to add as an additional wrinkle in the simple ecomnomic explanations : a lot of the "discovering drugs" part -still necessary before you can actually sell drugs, afaik-, hinges very much on having really good researchers work for you. And these researchers do care about curing diseases: I do not have one colleague that does not dream of being a new Salk. The market needs thus to correct for it: it tends to be more efficient / worth it to be ethical, because it is a prerequisite for top talent hiring in this space. This is of course complicated further by the sheer pigheadedness of CEOs with a career half life of 3 years who come in, _revolutionize_ something by destroying it and antagonizing the workers, bloat HR a bit more and drive sales through something illegal; and finally move on, tallying that one a success.
    - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
      I completely agree with you, but as you imply CEO-driven decisions can intervene. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-big-pharma-company-stalled-tuberculosis-vaccine-to-pursue-bigger-profits https://www.propublica.org/article/how-big-pharma-company-st... Two vaccine candidates use the same adjuvant. One demonstrates high efficacy at curing a disease killing over a million people per year in poorer countries, one demonstrates high efficacy in preventing shingles. Guess which one was prioritized for the adjuvant.
      - gumby 3y ago
- mx20 3y ago
  But only as long as the patent lasts. You usually can't sell a better cure if the original already cures. A treatment on the other hand leaves room for "improvement".
  - GuB-42 3y ago
    Of course you can make a better cure. Faster, less side effects, simpler route of administration, higher success rate,... The patent is actually an argument for the cure. Because if you have a lifetime treatment, as the patent expires, anyone will be able to copy your treatment. It is called generic drugs and it is done all the time. If you have a cure, during the time you have the patent, you will be able to treat everyone, both existing and new cases, and make tons of money while your competitors will have nothing. After the patent expires and your competitors will be able to copy your cure, only new cases will remain. Still valuable, but far less than when you had the patent and there were plenty of people to cure.
    - mx20 3y ago
      Goldman Sachs Analyst thinks otherwise. The company behind the Hepatitis C cure seems to also not doing well with monetizing their cure. There are also countries like Brazil that just suspended the patent. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patie...
- fragmede 3y ago
  Assuming they don't collude, that is.
hinkley 3y ago
I am getting into canning, and half the people have absolutely no fear of Clostridium botulinum and half of them are terrified. It has a similar sporulation strategy and even boiling doesn't necessarily kill it. Most recipes that have been scientifically proven to be safe with possible botulism vector foods use pH and sugar content to ensure that the little fuckers can't divide. Some pressure cook to raise the max temperature, and pH still matters in many of those. It's the same strategy bees use (modulo the heat). Honey can contain botulinum spores, but the pH is so low and the sugar crushingly high so it can't divide - until you try to make mead and fuck up the recipe. Or feed it to an infant.
- cipheredStones 3y ago
  Huh, I had no idea that honey was so acidic - looking it up, it's very possible for it to be as acidic as an orange.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    I don't think I've ever had non-acidic honey. I wonder if that's particular bees, particular flowers, or counterfeit honey. I'm suspecting the latter. We are just beginning to come to grips with how much of it there has been.
hinkley 3y ago
> Basically the treatment was given when there was a flare up, because the organism was only vulnerable in that mode Committing the sin of a double reply, different subject. There are treatments for HSV, some experimental but I thought I heard one had just about cleared the FDA, that are a cocktail of drugs that kill serum herpes simplex but as a chaser to a drug that tricks HSV into coming out of dormancy. So while it would always be good for big pharma to spend more research on prevention and less on treatment, it's not like no progress is being made. Whether they're sandbagging I really couldn't say.
Aurornis 3y ago
> But despite public opinion of pharma companies, I never heard anyone say "thank you spores!" In fact we did continue to try to attack the spores. I think this is a good example of the public imposing a sinister explanation on top of what is really an unfortunate reality: Pharma companies aren’t choosing to ignore the spore problem, they’re just focusing on treatments that can actually be made to work under our current technologies.

by gumby 3y ago

imdsm 3y ago

Could you share the name of the illness/pathogen? Very curious.

whatshisface 3y ago

As long as there is more than one pharma company, there's an incentive to cure chronic conditions because you'll take all of your competitor's business away and can charge a price equal to the lifetime costs of the chronic treatment.

zer00eyz 3y ago
An efficient market is characterized by a perfect, complete, costless, and instant transmission of information... You have conflated your incentive (a cure) with people who make and sell treatments (maximize profits). As long as there are Pharma companies, there is incentive to make slightly better treatments. That is same effect lower production cost, or same cost and better effect. It kind of sad that treatements have gone from prescription to subscription.
- Grimblewald 3y ago
  Everything is going the way of subscriptions. Ill probably be in subscription housing the rest of my life unless there is a crash in the property market.
  - selcuka 3y ago
    Housing has always been a subscription, you can't really technically own your house (try not paying your land tax).
- shoubidouwah 3y ago
  Just wanted to add as an additional wrinkle in the simple ecomnomic explanations : a lot of the "discovering drugs" part -still necessary before you can actually sell drugs, afaik-, hinges very much on having really good researchers work for you. And these researchers do care about curing diseases: I do not have one colleague that does not dream of being a new Salk. The market needs thus to correct for it: it tends to be more efficient / worth it to be ethical, because it is a prerequisite for top talent hiring in this space. This is of course complicated further by the sheer pigheadedness of CEOs with a career half life of 3 years who come in, _revolutionize_ something by destroying it and antagonizing the workers, bloat HR a bit more and drive sales through something illegal; and finally move on, tallying that one a success.
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    I completely agree with you, but as you imply CEO-driven decisions can intervene. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-big-pharma-company-stalled-tuberculosis-vaccine-to-pursue-bigger-profits https://www.propublica.org/article/how-big-pharma-company-st... Two vaccine candidates use the same adjuvant. One demonstrates high efficacy at curing a disease killing over a million people per year in poorer countries, one demonstrates high efficacy in preventing shingles. Guess which one was prioritized for the adjuvant.
    - gumby 3y ago
mx20 3y ago
But only as long as the patent lasts. You usually can't sell a better cure if the original already cures. A treatment on the other hand leaves room for "improvement".
- GuB-42 3y ago
  Of course you can make a better cure. Faster, less side effects, simpler route of administration, higher success rate,... The patent is actually an argument for the cure. Because if you have a lifetime treatment, as the patent expires, anyone will be able to copy your treatment. It is called generic drugs and it is done all the time. If you have a cure, during the time you have the patent, you will be able to treat everyone, both existing and new cases, and make tons of money while your competitors will have nothing. After the patent expires and your competitors will be able to copy your cure, only new cases will remain. Still valuable, but far less than when you had the patent and there were plenty of people to cure.
  - mx20 3y ago
    Goldman Sachs Analyst thinks otherwise. The company behind the Hepatitis C cure seems to also not doing well with monetizing their cure. There are also countries like Brazil that just suspended the patent. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patie...
fragmede 3y ago
Assuming they don't collude, that is.

hinkley 3y ago

I am getting into canning, and half the people have absolutely no fear of Clostridium botulinum and half of them are terrified. It has a similar sporulation strategy and even boiling doesn't necessarily kill it. Most recipes that have been scientifically proven to be safe with possible botulism vector foods use pH and sugar content to ensure that the little fuckers can't divide. Some pressure cook to raise the max temperature, and pH still matters in many of those. It's the same strategy bees use (modulo the heat). Honey can contain botulinum spores, but the pH is so low and the sugar crushingly high so it can't divide - until you try to make mead and fuck up the recipe. Or feed it to an infant.

cipheredStones 3y ago
Huh, I had no idea that honey was so acidic - looking it up, it's very possible for it to be as acidic as an orange.
- hinkley 3y ago
  I don't think I've ever had non-acidic honey. I wonder if that's particular bees, particular flowers, or counterfeit honey. I'm suspecting the latter. We are just beginning to come to grips with how much of it there has been.

hinkley 3y ago

> Basically the treatment was given when there was a flare up, because the organism was only vulnerable in that mode Committing the sin of a double reply, different subject. There are treatments for HSV, some experimental but I thought I heard one had just about cleared the FDA, that are a cocktail of drugs that kill serum herpes simplex but as a chaser to a drug that tricks HSV into coming out of dormancy. So while it would always be good for big pharma to spend more research on prevention and less on treatment, it's not like no progress is being made. Whether they're sandbagging I really couldn't say.

Aurornis 3y ago

> But despite public opinion of pharma companies, I never heard anyone say "thank you spores!" In fact we did continue to try to attack the spores. I think this is a good example of the public imposing a sinister explanation on top of what is really an unfortunate reality: Pharma companies aren’t choosing to ignore the spore problem, they’re just focusing on treatments that can actually be made to work under our current technologies.