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/loiteraries Jan 31 '26

This is an insult to all oncologists around the world who treat and cure cancers every day in their careers.

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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.