[hyc_symas]

A lot of potential treatments are too easily available and can't be patented. If a big pharma company can't make massive profit from it, they won't bother bringing it to market. Consider that a not-good reason.

Other treatments may eventually prove to have too many serious negative side effects. That's a good reason to abandon them.

[Aurornis]

> A lot of potential treatments are too easily available and can't be patented.

This isn’t really an obstacle, at least not as much as it’s made out to be.

There are numerous examples of drugs being brought to market at high prices despite having been generic compounds. Even old drugs can be brought back at $1000/month or more at different doses or delivery mechanisms.

One example: Doxepin is an old antidepressant that is extremely cheap. It was recently re-certified for sleep at lower doses and reintroduced at low doses at a much higher price, despite being “off patent”.

This happens all the time. The drug companies aren’t actually abandoning usable treatments due to patent issues as much as journalists have claimed. If they couldn’t, for some reason, find a way to charge for it they could still use it as a basis for finding an improved relayed compound with more targeted effects, better pharmacokinetics, etc.

They’re not just dropping promising treatments anywhere if there’s a market for them.

[DivingForGold]

About Doxepin. As many seniors do, I also suffer from extreme inability to stay asleep at night. I have trialed through all the known prescription and non prescription possibilities, only eszopiclone and baclofen seem to show some promise, however, eszopiclone is DEA listed, requires higher and higher doses, and if I take it more than say 2 weeks, it has rather serious side effects attempting to withdraw, addictive, serious anxiety, trying to wean oneself off it. Doxepin is prescribed as an antidepressant in large doses, one of the most potent H1 histamine antagonists known. The H1 system in our bodies promotes wakefulness. In very low doses, doxepin acts against the H1 to promote sleep. To avoid the upcharges of low dose doxepin, I am prescribed the high dose version, which I have to break the capsules to administer about 5 to 10 mg. placed in an empty gelatin capsule (it's bitter). It really works well, however you are fairly tired and useless the next day.

[megaman821]

Why would a China or India care if it were a viable treatment? Unless a country wants to use their population as lab rats, it takes money and scientists to actually confirm a treatment is safe and effective.

[cluckindan]

Obviously you use the neighboring country’s population, or an ethnic minority, or prisoners, or orphans, or…

[justinclift]

Wonder if some form of FOSS approach would work as an alternative development model for pharma?

[ikawe]

These folks gave an interesting talk on producing pharmaceuticals at defcon a couple years ago.

IIRC it was more about production methods than developing new treatments.

https://fourthievesvinegar.org/

[vibrio]

This made me think of the "Institute for one world health" . It came out as a non-profit pharmaceutical company in the mid 2000's. Victoria Hale was the founder-it got her a MacArthur fellowship. It is focuses(focused?) on global health and populations underserved by for-profit models. I think they successfully developed a treatment for leishmaniasis. it's an adorable model and should be pushed but as usual it seems like the philantropy money is limiting.

[dboreham]

Kind of like open source software.