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There is no vaccine. No medication. And, no quick, reliable test for Zika virus ... until now. Babies born with the virus often have lifelong, devastating birth defects. Testing for the virus currently involves trained medical staff drawing and mailing blood samples to a lab, a process that can take up to four weeks.
"Most adults with Zika have mild flu-like symptoms or no symptoms at all. Couples trying to conceive might not even know if they are infected and at risk," Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak urology scientist Laura Lamb, Ph.D., said.
Dr. Lamb and her Beaumont colleagues developed a quick, simple test for Zika virus so easy to administer, you don't even need a doctor. It's a urine test that produces results in under 30 minutes.
"When we discovered we could reliably detect Zika virus in urine, we knew we had the potential to change lives all over the world," Dr. Lamb said.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:48PM (8 children)
Great news for stockholders of Pig Pharma!
So will this urine test be priced at $10,000? Do I hear $20,000? $20,000 anyone? Do I hear $25,000?
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @06:33PM (5 children)
If people are willing to pay for the test, then isn't it also great news for them as well?
The pricing of the test will probably be set to maximize profit (considering market share and competitor tests). Pharmaceutical companies are not charities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:36PM
Your honor, it is ABSOLUTELY VITAL that we price this medication for 500x profit!
I mean, yes, we've been producing these injectors for decades and recouped our R&D costs incurred in designing it several times over, but my wallet--er I mean, our company survival--depends on continuing to charge an arm and a leg for it to finance other R&D. And don't even think about trying to regulate us another inch or we'll move to India!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:49PM (2 children)
Forget about being willing to pay for the test. How about being able to pay for the test? People on Trumpcare?
I don't expect Pig Pharma to be a charity. They should even make a healthy profit. But just how much?
I know it is considered bad form to read the article, but from the last paragraph of TFA: (the friendly article)
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:18PM (1 child)
How about being able to pay for the test? ... They should even make a healthy profit. But just how much?
The US has a for profit healthcare system - I don't believe this to be the most efficient system or the "best", but this is apparently the system we deserve (since the politicians keep getting elected).
philanthropic fund supported the study
If they didn't attach any strings to the money they gave, then that is their failing. Although it looks like someone else already beat the researchers to the patent:
https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3098326A1 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:19PM
If they didn't attach any strings to the money they gave, then that is their failing. Although it looks like someone else already beat the researchers to the patent:
" rel="url2html-29424">https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3098326A1
Title: Isothermal amplification assay for rapid and accurate detection of hemorrhagic fever viruses in clinical samples
Priority date: 2015-05-27
Inventors: Jean-Claude Manuguerra, Camille Escadafal, Aurélia Kwasiborski, Jessica VANHOMWEGEN
Current Assignee: Institut Pasteur
The question becomes if Dr. Lamb used this technology to test for Zika or if this patent got wind of Lambs work to make a patent before Lamb could file one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @08:03PM
One of the big downsides of wealth inequality is that the price-demand curve for every more products reaches its optimal peak outside the reach of ever more people. In a world where 1 person in a thousand has more money than every below him - combined, free market economics start to produce results that are unlikely to prove beneficial to anybody in the longrun.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @07:57PM
i wonder what atrocities they'll commit once they find out? the less the baby killers of western medicine know about you, the better.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday May 16 2017, @09:10PM
They'll have to offer it cheap, because nobody beats the whizz :v Nobody.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...