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Comment by jrflowers | Hacker News Reader

I like how the author has discovered that a problem that costs pharma companies billions of dollars actually has a quick fix: simply model how livers react to infinite compounds.

Since all livers behave the same and there is no variation based on gene expression or disease, this is a trivial task! The reason why this hasn’t been Solved is because none have been Disruptive enough to dream of doing research in this area.

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Moreover, pharma companies and academics already do model PK.. it's a huge field of study, not some ignored "broken stair" - there is definitely "serious money" behind this.

Author here. That's not what I said. Please don't be a jerk on the Internet.

You literally wrote

> It would just require the raw data from a variety of pharmacokinetic trials, some in-depth experiments on human liver and gastric membranes, and some simulation of the physics of how different drugs diffuse into the bloodstream and across membranes. This would be difficult, but not impossible, and would not require any huge scientific advances.

Yes, what do you think the pk trials and liver experiments would involve if not people who have a variety of phenotypes?

Indeed. The use of computation methods has been going on for I don't know..40 years at least? Since the advent of computers.

This is not a new approach nor one that hasn't already been exhaustively explored at a massive cost.

In majority of cases drugs simply fail due to issues with solubility and absorption, not metabolism.

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