Current Event 2007 - article on human cloning / sheep-human chimeras

Volume 106; Issue 23; ISSN: 00113492 2007 Current Events.

What do you get when you cross a sheep with a human? That sounds like a joke, but the question is no laughing matter; it's serious science. The result, a chimera, is an animal with cells from another animal. Recently, Esmail Zanjani, a scientist at the University of Nevada, announced he had created sheep with 15 percent human cells. His goal is to create partly human organs for people who need transplants.
The word chimera comes from a mythical Greek beast with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a snake's tail. Skeptics say that the prospect of growing human spare parts in sheep is still a distant dream. Modern cloning techniques, however, have allowed scientists to enter uncharted and, some people say, dangerous territory. Currently, no laws regulate the creation of chimeras-only voluntary guidelines from the National Academies. And the absence of legislation is, to some, as scary as the original Greek chimera.
BIOLOGICAL NIGHTMARE
In 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush called for "legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms," including "creating human-animal hybrids." At the time, his speech left many people scratching their heads and wondering whether the president had just proposed a ban on mermaids. But Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) knew exactly what Bush meant.
"Human chimeras-long considered science fiction or mythology-have become reality," he said in a 2005 speech at Harvard Law School. "These hybrid creatures blur the line between humans and animals and [seriously] compromise human dignity." Brownback proposed a law in 2006 banning human chimera research. One of his main concerns is that such research often uses human embryonic stem cells, the extraction of which destroys the embryo. Brownback is among many critics who consider that practice immoral.
Brownback also fears that mixing human and animal genetic material could create new diseases. Dr. Patrick Dixon, a lecturer on biological trends, worries that new viruses could be a "biological nightmare" for humans. "Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV [the virus that causes AIDS]."

Future of the Pharmaceutical industry - new attack on ethics - pushing lifestyle issues

A new report in the Public Library of Science Medicine has again accused the pharmaceutical industry of unethical behaviour, this time by “disease-mongering” and “lifestyle” treatments for minor problems.

This comes at a time when AstraZeneca, Shire Pharmaceuticals, GSK and others are reporting strong profit growth.

The problem for the report is that it seems to ignore the pattern of history of medicine.

As society has become more affluent, and as medical progress has continued, each generation has tended to think of illness in a new way.  Issues that were considered just the inconveniences of life in previous decades now become treatable conditions which people are wanting help with.

I often talk of above the line and below the line:  above is medical, below is performance or lifestyle – but the line keeps falling.

IVF – was below the line in the UK, a fact of life if you are infertile.  But now has become a treatable condition under the NHS.

Cosmetic surgery was entirely below the line except when dealing with injuries, but in today’s NHS even a total sex change operation is now above the line, as is just about any kind of cosmetic surgery if a strong enough case can be made about the psychological damage being caused.

Hair loss in women – above the line.

Hair loss in men – below the line.

Impotence – definitely now above the line.

Mental enhancement drugs in older people with memory loss – above the line.

Mental enhancement drugs in older people without memory loss – below the line.

 

The big issue for the future of the pharmacueutical industry is to get accurate predictions about how that line is likely to move in the next 5-15 years – but that in turn also depends on what new options become available.

Pharmacueutical industry faces fresh pressure on intellectual property

Expect new pressures on the pharmaceutical industry when it comes to protecting the patents on their product portfolio.

In some territories such as China the situation is far from clear from the legal point of view. But even if a pharmaceutical company feels it has a strong case, the real question is whether the corporation has the moral strength to pursue a court battle.

As we saw in the collapse of a prominent legal battle in S Africa over the use of generic drugs against HIV, the industry as a whole shows little appetite for big, highly publicised legal cases.

The more urgently needed a drug is to help save lives in the poorest nations, the greater the probability that the patent owner will be under pressure to allow other manufacturers to make and sell more or less at cost, or to cut their own market price.

Future blockbuster drugs are therefore more likely to be those which are targetted at developed markets, for lifestyle or chronic conditions.

In the meantime the cost of developing a new drug is approaching $1bn, and the time needed for the whole process of discovery through to marketing can be as long as 15 years, further eroding the 25 year protection interval for exploitation of a discovery.

Threat from generics in an online world

A few months ago there were two prices for Cipro online: the price in New York $5 a tablet, and in Delhi 35c a tablet.

One was made officially, the other was an "illegal" generic.

In the old days before the web such a thing would hardly have mattered so long as generics stayed in emerging economies where sales of the high priced alternative would have been almost zero.

But in the net world, with Fedex and other carriers able to carry packets in a day, and customs / regulators overwhelmed, more or less any medicine can turn up in any country from any source.

Expect countries like India and China to tighten up their intellectual property regulations, while other emerging nations quickly fill the gap as safe havens for unauthorised generic manufacturing.