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Comment by ryanSrich | Hacker News Reader

TL;DR - the drug still exists, but the headlines were highly editorialized. It's not a sleep replacement, rather a treatment of narcolepsy. Narcoleptic patients aren't using it because drug companies won't make it. Drug companies won't make it because there's no money in it.

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1 point by johnhenry 0 minutes ago | parent | edit | delete | on: A Nasal Spray That Was Supposed to Replace Sleep

I had a teacher who was narcoleptic -- sure it was funny when he would fall asleep in the middle of class, but when his wife died he wasn't in a position to take care of all five of his children, so his 17 year old daughter had to forego her dreams of college in order to take care of her siblings. This probably isn't the best venue to say this, but it really saddens me when people's lives are ruined because there isn't a profit in helping them.

i agree wholeheartedly, but the next comment by boona ("Considering it costs between $100 million to $1 billion to get a drug approved by the FDA (depending on the study you look at), I can see why they wouldn't touch it.") highlights the issue: profit is only an incentive to do it; the initial cost is there either way and somebody has to cover it. if it's not private companies, who would that be...?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institutes_of_Health

That's what the Orphan Drug Act of 1983 was all about. In theory companies have enough incentive to produce these kinds of drugs.

> Drug companies won't make it because there's no money in it.

Considering it costs between $100 million to $1 billion to get a drug approved by the FDA (depending on the study you look at), I can see why they wouldn't touch it.

In situations like this the FDA should be permitted to grant a temporary monopoly so it becomes worth the investment.

Isn't that a "patent"?

Yes, but this would only apply to medicine/treatment and only in cases where it isn't something that can be patented.

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