Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by takyon on Tuesday September 18 2018, @12:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the inject-this dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Open Insulin, 'DIY bio' and the future of pharma

The development, manufacture and sale of pharmaceutical drugs in the United States is a complex landscape involving intellectual property and strict federal regulations. But according to Colorado State University scientists, the status quo of the U.S. pharmaceutical market may soon be turned on its head. That's due in part to a growing community of do-it-yourself "biohackers" who are disrupting business-as-usual for pharmaceutical discovery, development and distribution. A Sept. 13 perspective piece in Trends in Biotechnology [DOI: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2018.07.009] [DX] frames these emerging issues, and predicts how the pharmaceutical industry, and the U.S. regulatory environment, will need to change in response.

[...] The authors use the California-based Open Insulin Project as a case study of how the DIY bio movement might shape the future of medicine. Founded in 2015, the project's creators are trying to increase competition in the insulin market by developing and releasing an open-source protocol for manufacturing off-patent insulin.

Why does the Open Insulin Project exist in the first place? Insulin is 100 years old, but it remains prohibitively expensive for many patients, with some uninsured patients paying up to $400 a month for this life-saving medicine. People are angry, and in some cases, people are dying, from lack of access to affordable insulin.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by aiwarrior on Tuesday September 18 2018, @01:22PM (4 children)

    by aiwarrior (1812) on Tuesday September 18 2018, @01:22PM (#736493) Journal

    The problem is

    What is cheaper?
    A decentralized small volume buyer vs A centralized volume buyer

    What is cheaper?
    An amputated citizen and or even a minimal hospitalization for diabetes vs Help the person with a very simple medicine so he can be productive.

    We are not talking about Hepatitis C here, and even there, there may be a case....

    Morality vs Economics/Math

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday September 18 2018, @01:31PM (3 children)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Tuesday September 18 2018, @01:31PM (#736501) Journal

    It's possible that the DIY bio crowd will come up with an absolutely cheaper method of making the insulin. In which case the official producers can adopt that method and scale it up. Or maybe it will only be significantly cheaper because they are skipping safety and quality control checks, and there's lower transportation costs (when made in your home or locally), etc.

    Whatever the case, the Open Insulin Project and others like it can't be stopped. Only driven underground, like other biologists and chemists (except there is much more sympathy for someone making cheap insulin than cheap meth, so they could probably distribute it without getting ratted out).

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 2) by aiwarrior on Tuesday September 18 2018, @01:52PM (1 child)

      by aiwarrior (1812) on Tuesday September 18 2018, @01:52PM (#736511) Journal

      I am with you on this, this is good. Competition is good, if it fails its part of life.
      This is where the actual philosophy and morality enter: Is the US system, with it's Darwinism always going to come out on top of the game? Perhaps. Is it worth it?

      One of my current philosophical dilemmas.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 19 2018, @11:54AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 19 2018, @11:54AM (#737003) Journal

        This is where the actual philosophy and morality enter: Is the US system, with it's Darwinism always going to come out on top of the game? Perhaps. Is it worth it?

        We should ask why the US system ended on top in the first place? Second, the US health care system is screwed up despite significant attempts to make it less Darwinian. These attempts have often backfired badly (such as creating the oligopoly situation with insulin).

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday September 18 2018, @01:56PM

      by sjames (2882) on Tuesday September 18 2018, @01:56PM (#736513) Journal

      Or more likely, it will cost twice as much to make but without the rapacious markup, will only cost 1/10th as much to the end user.

      The market is broken.