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Comment by Myrth | Hacker News Reader

A question for people in the know - if there's a research/treatment that can not be patented/monetized due to its generic nature, but it still requires millions of dollars in trials - is it doomed to never be done?

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I think that not too many folks have tried that hard, really. But whatever, I'm giving it a shot. (Setting up and running a fun experiment today). I got 60k in funding from crowd funding, which is great for a startup nonprofit with no reputation. This is enough to do a mouse equivalent of the kaplan-meier curve.... But not enough to pay myself (I variously drive for Lyft and contract code to make ends meet).

Worth noting the salk and Sabin polio vaccines were not patented.

I would say a real breakthrough would still get done through gov't or non-profit support. It just might take a lot longer than a drug with clear financial upside.

DCA - dichloroactate comes to mind. It was promising but unpatentable. It got lots of funding.

There are a lot of research chemicals that have potential but are discarded for various reason. Usually the reasons revolve around efficacy. A lot of them can be bought off Alibaba. Something to think about if you're desperate.

Myo-inositol trispyrophosphate has a lot of potential for cancer treatment. And its use in sports doping has decreased the price.

Heh. What I read there is "Even more widespread doping is sports will lead to a cure for cancer". Sounds like a reason to encourage doping rather than trying to stamp it out.

Unless the therapy you envision requires simply isolation of unchanged DNA and injection of that DNA back into a person without any modification whatsoever, it's likely that you could obtain a patent on a novel therapy.

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