Comment by joe_the_user | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joe_the_user | Hacker News Reader

Well, it seems logical that biotech would boom in a country with less regulation than the US.

At the same time, it seems like for biotech to have an explosion akin to the last fifty years explosion of computer technology, one would have to find a way to well and truly automate the processes involved. Last I looked, a vast amount of research is very much by hand, injecting drug into animal by hand, putting liquids in beakers by hand etc.

And part of it is living creatures are all different, and not just different in the two rocks on a beach or two toys out of a cheap mold are different. Living creatures, even two instance of the same creature, have functioning subsystems that function differently. And this is a multi-dimensional thing [1] . Custom tailored therapies attempt to take this into account but so far seem to have generally failed. I would speculate this is because humans have more than two or dimensions of difference between, even in subsystems like the immune system.

Edit: using AI to combine information on these systems that seem intractable in themselves also sounds promising - still many problem there also.

[1] Biochemical Individuality, Roger J. Williams

> Well, it seems logical that biotech would boom in a country with less regulation than the US.

Relevant excerpt: "Innovent is hunting for employees who have worked in countries such as the United States, where the drug industries are more mature and people have had greater experience of overseeing the development of innovative drugs (see ‘What recruiters want’). “Ten per cent of our team are from overseas,” says Yu. “Returnees have first-hand experience with how drugs are developed and regulated in the United States.” This type of foreign experience will become increasingly important. In July, China became a member of the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH), signalling its intentions to mould its regulatory system in the shape of the ICH’s founding members: the United States, the European Union and Japan."

> Well, it seems logical that biotech would boom in a country with less regulation than the US.

If that was the case, biotech would be booming from the congo to nepal.

Biotech is booming in china because they have the resources ( money, people and infrastructure ).

Come on, any comment like mine above has an implicit "all else being equal" in it. I didn't say that to describe some absolute formula but to contextualize my later remarks.

And my point is that you are just offering simplification that has no merit. It's a cheap ploy I expect from silly journalists, not on HN. Regulation isn't why there is a biotech boom. As I stated, it's money, people and infrastructure.

Point 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

Point 2: There's no country with more money and infrastructure than the US. The only advantage would be more people. And I doubt China has more of the people needed in Biotech research than the US which still attracts the brightest of the world through it's academic system.

So there must be something else. And I think lack of regulation might be a good enough reason. Kind of like how Hollywood boomed after they pirated all the hardware whose patents could only be enforced on the east coast at that time.

> Point 2: There's no country with more money and infrastructure than the US.

Except our money and infrastructure is going into other sectors. China has chosen to direct their resources into this sector. Simple as that.

> Kind of like how Hollywood boomed after they pirated all the hardware whose patents could only be enforced on the east coast at that time.

Hollywood boomed when money, people and infrastructure was directed to it. It was a conscious decision made by the elites. There are tons of regulation in hollywood. It's still booming. Using your logic, hollywood should be a ghost town. Ironically, your example proves you wrong.

http://www.history.com/news/the-renegade-roots-of-hollywood-...

Hollywood didn't start as elites, they started escaping them.

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