• Question: if your research were to pay off and there was a very effective medicine would you look for a new one to make more or would you stop that genre of science completely?

    Asked by anon-213157 to Robert on 10 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Robert Ives

      Robert Ives answered on 10 Jun 2019:

      Good question. In certain diseases, such as heart disease, COPD, asthma, a perfect medicine could work indefinitely and in this situation we would no longer research the area. However, many diseases caused by viruses and bacteria get used to medicines and the medicines will become less effective or stop working altogether. Antibiotics, TB, malaria, HIV are just a few examples of where there is a constant race between these tiny micro-organisms and science. DDT was a chemical spray that wiped out over 99% of malaria spreading mosquitos, but the few that survived bred and produced more mosquitos, all of which were immune to this chemical. It is the same with viruses.

Comments

  • Photo: Robert

    Robert commented on :

    Also, once a ‘perfect medicine’ has been on the market for a few years, other companies are allowed to start copying it. Specialist companies known as ‘generics’ are able to produce medicines far cheaper than pharma companies (because they don’t need to spend billions of pounds on research) and usually this will bring the price of medicines down.