3 ms·

It's fairly easy to cure cancer by repairing DNA, but Big Pharma isn't interested because they can't patent it. They want to sell us some kind of "miracle cure"

• jorisw 2mo ago
  [citation needed]
  • hn_submit 2mo ago
    https://refractor.io/cancer/cancer-cells-normal/ https://refractor.io/cancer/cancer-cells-normal/
• Yizahi 2mo ago
  a) they can and will patent it, because in the end it will be same tools "bIg pHormA" uses today for all kinds of tasks. b) they are financially and subjectively interested in developing said tools to combat cancer even if they will be cloned and sold in parallel way cheaper than original. Because - 1) it would be immensely profitable on it's own, cancer is one the most common ailments, 2) post-cancer treatments are bringing in fortunes to pharma companies, because practically any cancer survivor is then locked on some medicine for life, 3) the success story alone, putting for example the most hated person in the world on a covers of literally every magazine and newspaper with a list of honorifics, awards and titles is incredibly enticing to every sociopathic CEO, 4) and as I said, not even generics or lack of crazy long patents can stop a company from becoming gold plated. I can go buy Ozempic generic for a fraction of a cost legally in a nearest apothecary, Novo is still The richest corpo in Europe anyway. tl;dr - there is no conspiracy. It's just just hard. PS: correction - not generics, but variants of Ozempic. But the point still stands.
  • hn_submit 2mo ago
    Repairing cannot be patented. It will be rejected as "trivial" by the Patent Office. Yes, I know someone patented a "cure" for hemophilia which repairs the DNA of said patient. But that's just because no other pharmaceutical thought it worth their while to fight the patent since the number of patients is small. But I can guarantee you that a cancer cure patent that repairs the DNA will be fought in Court.
    • Arainach 2mo ago
      "repairing DNA" isn't patentable, but "a mechanism for altering base pairs using <I won't insult actual chemists by pretending I know plausible terms here>" is absolutely patentable.
      • hn_submit 2mo ago
        You can call it anything you like but it's still the repairing of DNA. It will be contested in Court and the patent holder will lose.
        • Arainach 2mo ago
          What's your source for this? This isn't how patent law works. You can't patent "repairing a road" but you can absolutely patent a new mechanism to do so. Most patents are of this form - there are far more patents for improved ways of doing things than initial ways of doing things.
          • hn_submit 2mo ago
            You cannot patent gene repair with CRISPR-CAS because that's long been patented (and also disputed by multiple entities). If several genes are faulty and I repair them what would be the innovation? The detection of a specific set of faulty genes? The order of repair? Big Pharma has long figured this out and I have inside knowledge from people who know that this is the reason they're not pursuing it. P.S.: Big Pharma is now quietly also researching gene repair but I believe it's to hedge their bets. Maybe they're counting on "lobbying"/bribing politicians to allow them to patent gene repair regardless.
• jayGlow 2mo ago
  if it's that simple why haven't any other countries done this? there are countries with universal healthcare cancer is very resource intensive to treat if they could cure it so easily why haven't they done so already?
  • hn_submit 2mo ago
    Because they don't develop medicines themselves. And there's huge political pressure to keep out of Big Pharma's backyard.