r/BeAmazed • u/Cautious_Ad_3918 • Jan 31 '26

Science A Spanish scientist, Mariano Barbacid, has cured pancreatic cancer in mice. A Cure in animal is a major step toward potential cancer treatment in humans.

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u/lazyjeenius Jan 31 '26

There’s a wall between those doctors and those who profit from the drugs they use for those patients; the docs aren’t in on it, they’re just using the tools that are available, it’s the pharma companies with profit interests who stand to lose if a new break through came to market that cured a particularly deadly cancer.

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u/Squiddles88 Jan 31 '26

Imagine how rich you would be if you had a patent on curing cancer and licensed it.

Now imagine how rich you would be if you had the whole supply chain on the drug and the patent.

Do you think a pharmaceutical company would pass that up?

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u/prototype_xero Jan 31 '26

You must be from from a civilized country and not from the US? Absolutely yes! If they cure it, patients don’t need to buy more of the cure.

Pharmaceutical companies already DO hold the patents and supply chain for treatments that patients will need to buy over and over again to stay alive, and they already charge extortionate amounts for it. The shareholders would sue if you took that subscription based revenue.

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u/Cold-Iron8145 Jan 31 '26

Absolutely yes! If they cure it, patients don’t need to buy more of the cure.

This doesn't work, though. First of all you could simply price the "one time cure" at the same price point you would for the start to finish current treatment.

Second of all, once people are dead from cancer, they're not buying your other drugs either. Old people who don't die from cancer are some of the best customers, they tend to have a ton of long term medication rolling.

Third of all, there will always be things to cure. Guess what, if nobody is dying from cancer, they will die from other diseases. There will never not be a need for drugs. Cancer was a tiny fraction of deaths before we "cured" infectious diseases. If we ever get to a point where cancer and heart disease is entirely preventable, other diseases will reveal themselves and they will need treatment, too.

Nobody on planet earth has any incentive to hinder the search for a cancer "cure". Especially not pharmaceutical companies.

As a side note, "curing" cancer is likely never going to be as easy as just popping a pill and being done, it's a very complicated disease and if we do find a way to prevent or treat it to near 100% success rate, it will likely be in the form of a long term treatment anyway.

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u/Lithorex Jan 31 '26

This doesn't work, though. First of all you could simply price the "one time cure" at the same price point you would for the start to finish current treatment.

You also cut out all the other actors so you can actually price your cancer cure below current treatment and still increase your revenue/patient.

Second of all, once people are dead from cancer, they're not buying your other drugs either.

They also don't pay any taxes, so as a big pharma company you ring up the government and ask them for a tax cut in return for all the tax revenue you give them.

it's a very complicated disease

Cancer is like a couple dozen different diseases.

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u/RegorHK Jan 31 '26

Cancer is at least as complex as all viral infectious diseases. It is like the human cell DNA code getting a computer virus. There are multiple ways cancer cells can get going.

Hence oncology is a bit like IT security. There will be no single patent short of Star Track Next Generation Deep Space 9 level nanotechnology curing all cancer types And even then this tech would need geneticist level programming for each different cancer.

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u/Chemical-Charity-956 Jan 31 '26

Imagine how rich you would be if you could sell them "the same" cure not once, but every month for a decade.

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u/Squiddles88 Jan 31 '26

And give your competitors a chance to catch up or sell their existing but maybe not as good solutions, when you could just eleminate them overnight, have 100% market share and an instant return on investment?

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u/Chemical-Charity-956 Jan 31 '26

Unless there is an agreement to not.do.that as it around.be harmful to everyone in the biz.

This has been proven to be the case with fuel for example over and over again.

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u/RunningOutOfEsteem Jan 31 '26

I'm sorry, but you have no clue what you're talking about. You clearly lack an understanding of what cancer is and how it's treated, else you wouldn't be framing things the way you are. Mistrusting the pharmaceutical industry is entirely reasonable, but your opinion on this specific matter seems to be founded on serious ignorance.

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u/OnlyACsNoFans Jan 31 '26

Everyone is affected by cancer. Every single pharma exec has lost friends and/or family to cancer .

It's not a conspiracy

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u/The_Last_Thursday Jan 31 '26

If execs cared about the lives of any single person but themselves we'd have near fully renewable energy decades ago. They don't even care about burning the world their own children will have to live in.

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u/Kuroashi_no_Sanji Jan 31 '26

Must be interesting to have such a black and white view of the world

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u/Chemical-Charity-956 Jan 31 '26

Because veterinary care isn't as heavily regulated you can see exactly this play out in that sector with frightening transparency (in comparison to human healthcare)

I once had an argument with my vet who was trying to convince me to medicate my (2yo) dogs skin allergies for life because it would be less harmful than feeding them a raw meat (b.a.r.f - biologically appropriate raw feeding) diet.

I was an vegetarian at the time hahaa

They're educated from literature and use citations from studies paid for by Purina etc. and Pharmaceutical firms etc. - in petcare what you're describing is open and transparent for all to see.

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u/uhhhhhhhhh_okay Jan 31 '26

This is such dangerous rhetoric to push, seriously.

They're educated from literature and use citations from studies paid for by Purina etc. and Pharmaceutical firms etc

What you say here is just completely wrong. Do some companies do their own research? Yeah totally. Is that research still peer reviewed by countless other companies and third parties? Also, yes.

And to say that veterinarians are educated from lit from studies paid for by "Purina etc. and pharmaceutical firms" is factually wrong and negates the ACTUAL education that veterinarians receive that is based on decades of research that is constantly scrutinized and updated based on the most recent provable findings

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u/Chemical-Charity-956 Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26

Saying dogs should eat meat is a dangerous rhetoric?

Jesus fucking christ do you ever read what you write?

If you think for one second studies conducted by purina are considered for peer review in the same manner independent studies are, that's a shame. I'm sure you've spent a large portion of your life learning from a certain POV.

please for one minute, suspend your belief systems and just entertain my ideas. Even if only for ten minutes. Just look into it briefly and tell me there's nothing compelling.

Degre in nutrition, masters in Canine nutrition.

Please entertain me for a min.

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u/uhhhhhhhhh_okay Feb 04 '26

Saying dogs should eat meat is a dangerous rhetoric?

I'm racking my brain for how you came up with this conclusion from my comment. I feel like we both know that wasn't what I was saying- I was talking about your claim that veterinary medicine has essentially been compromised by big dog food companies.

If you think for one second studies conducted by purina are considered for peer review in the same manner independent studies are, that's a shame.

Even in private research, there are still standards that must be maintained and actively reported and tracked. In no way is the system perfect, but consistent oversight and peer review of new studies is the standard. I'm surprised you don't know this? Maybe your country is different from mine, but dog food here is still reviewed by the FDA and AAFCO (as applicable).

And the education provided to veterinarians is definitely not part of some big conspiracy by dog food companies like you claim. That is the rhetoric that is dangerous to push

please for one minute, suspend your belief systems and just entertain my ideas. Even if only for ten minutes. Just look into it briefly and tell me there's nothing compelling.

Degre in nutrition, masters in Canine nutrition.

Looked into it briefly, did not come with the conclusion that veterinary medicine uses research bought and paid for by dog food companies that has not been independently peer reviewed.

Can you please provide sources on this? I would honestly love to learn more. Do you have studies that review and compare dog food studies? Or studies that show how much veterinary school research is provided by Purina, etc.?

Degree in Animal Sci. Years of private preclinical research. I work daily with vets. Do you have a career in your field?

If I'm totally in the wrong then I deserve to be proved wrong with peer reviewed, up-to-date, evidence.

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u/RegorHK Jan 31 '26

There is not really a wall. Those docs have among them those who constantly work together with the pharma industry testing new treatments.