> The researchers then checked snot from hospitalized patients. Of 187 samples, all but one were colonized by either S. aureus or S. lugdunensis
> S. lugdunensis, was killing S. aureus. Its weapon of choice? A small compound dubbed lugdunin
> The German researchers who performed the study have filed a patent for lugdunin
Are we really allowing people to patent naturally occurring biological compounds these days? Shouldn't the patent be for specific treatments derived from their findings on lugdunin, not the compound itself?
You have to choose a system. If we don't want naturally-occurring compounds patented, but we want them researched for potential drug use, we need more public funding. Otherwise, we have to offer researchers and drug manufacturers an incentive to take risks with exploring these compounds.
Barring lugdunin from being patented while providing no public funding would incentivise this group to withhold publication until they thought they'd found every commercially-reasonably derivation.
The US spends yearly US$26.4 billion of collected taxes on medical research. If as you say, we got to choose a system, patents of naturally-occurring compounds or state funded research, does that mean that the state can by issuing this patent save $26.4 billion and put that money somewhere else?
Its not a "choose a system" kind of deal. It never has been. It always been state funded research + investment supported by patents + university funds + non-profit funds + additional government funded incentives. The question we should ask is if this specific incentive is needed together with all the other incentives in order to create a end user product that will saves lives sometime in the future.
At least if they'd kept their findings secret, researchers could independently be researching the same thing.
Now independent researchers won't want to touch lugdunin because they'll need to license the patent, however they won't know whether licensing the patent is worthwhile until they do their research. This will prevent further research, not encourage it.
As someone who used to work in drug development, I disagree.
Patents don't prevent compounds from being explored in research. If this is anything like other discoveries, companies will start looking at lugdunin very closely.
What is it's mechanism of action? Can the structure be optimized? What else could it be used for?
Other antibiotics have been patented and that didn't stop companies from doing the research and tweaking the structure to make it even better.
From this image of the structure (http://cen.acs.org/content/dam/cen/94/31/09431-notw4-Lugduni...) it looks very much like some kind of small pore. That's a total guess, of course, but a cyclic peptide with alternating chirality looks reasonable, although a little small at only 7 residues.
Worse, other commercial researches will be wasting their time with busywork to find a non-patented analog which they can claim for themselves, instead of working on new things.
Why is finding a non-patented analog a bad thing? A lot of our medical discoveries are incremental advancements brought about work on analogs.
Maybe a company will find a new mechanism of action when they look at analogs? Maybe a less toxic version? Maybe the lead compound fails but the backups work?
That's not actually a bad thing. The first signs of resistance occur on average 1~2 years after introduction of a novel abx; the search for variants helps to extend the usable life of a new family of antibiotics.
Are you sure about that? I would think that the patent wouldn't apply to non-commercial investigations or research. That is you would be free to synthesize or extract this chemical in a laboratory environment. However, if you wished to manufacture the drug for commercial purposes then you would need to license the patent.
Well, potential researchers will also have to weigh the possibility that they spend all of the time and effort to research other possibilities for it only to find out that after all of the licensing fees, etc they won't even be able to break even on the fruits of their research.
It carries too high of a risk for financially-minded people (looking for a return on investment) to throw money at it.
You're right that it won't apply for non-commercial investigations. But how are you funding the investigation? It's typically funded by the proceeds generated from the research. Research is always hit and miss as to profitability, more miss than hit. Factor in potentially unknown licensing arrangements, even if you do have a "hit", and suddenly your research doesn't look like such a good idea.
> It's typically funded by the proceeds generated from the research.
That's only true in the case of commercial R&D. For non-commercial (academic) research, the funding is normally through a grant mechanism (not company supported). Academic research is almost never concerned with the licensing/patent issues aside from "can I run my experiment". It is common for academic labs to use drugs that are still "in the pipeline" for experiments.
Indeed. It is all about incentives. And in the end, pharmaceutical companies have the incentive to keep people sick so they can keep selling drugs, while the public has the incentive to keep people healthy. So it is actually a no-brainer.
The website[1] of the lead author, Andreas Peschel, lists funding at the bottom. Almost all projects are funded by the DFG. The DFG is an institution that funds research and is itself funded by taxpayer money.
So yes, this research has been paid for by the German public. However, it is common for universities to apply for patents. Revenue from patent licensing is then usually shared between the university and the researchers.
I don't see any reason why the researchers couldn't have placed their discovery in the public domain, just as Tim Berners-Lee did with his ideas.
Unfortunately many universities (and hence researchers) are under pressure to commercialise their IP, based on the assumption that such behaviour is beneficial to the economy.
1. Get a patent, find a commercial partner and investors who will give you a ton of money to develop it in the hopes of getting a return.
2. Make it public domain, remove any financial incentive to develop it, then try and convince whoever to give you hundreds of millions of dollars to develop it without any hope of financial return?
Those are not the only options. Free and open source innovations can create enormous economic opportunities - witness Linux, the Web, etc etc. Even now, unpatented medicines are widely commercially available and making some people a lot of money.
It sounds like drug discovery ought to be taxpayer-funded, then, as a project that is in the public interest but difficult to monetize without jeopardizing the public interest.
I think that even private-sector-developed drugs rely on publicly-funded research.
Worst is when American companies charge U.S. customers higher prices than overseas consumers for drugs that were developed using USA-taxpayer-funded research.
They charge everyone as much as they can get away with, its still the same old supply and demand. The issue is that say France/Egypt/India can provide an organize front when dealing with pharmaceutical companies so they get better deals.
Ever seen the video with Ron Paul being asked a question with what should happen to a person who has no insurance but needs immediate medical care and the audience shouted "Let him die!". There's your answer.
>we need more public funding. Otherwise, we have to offer researchers and drug manufacturers an incentive...
I'll take researchers for $1,000, Alex.
Not a knock to drug manufacturers who are simply acting as they should under the current profit-driven system, but I think we'd be far better off if more of this existential-level stuff (like health) were government functions, or at least government sponsored and not-for-profit.
So, let's support a federation of researchers who have direct incentive for discovery. Then, let's make those discoveries public domain.
That's not a valid counter argument. He's using an analogy to produce a practical counter-example where private funded research is producing better / cheaper solutions (presumably, I'm uninformed on the subject). I think a more valid counter-argument would be arguing SpaceX isn't better, or that the domains share no similarities.
>*a more valid counter-argument would be arguing that SpaceX isn't better or that the domains share no similarities
Not quite. Arguing that Space X is no better would be following a red herring and arguing that there are no similarities is too high a standard. A valid counterargument merely needs to show that they are sufficiently different in some important way.
And, my (admittedly pithy) counterargument ran exactly along those lines.
Meanwhile, the main difference between the domains had already been pointed out in my original comment, and I even provided an example of a relevant domain.
So, you've gotten it exactly backwards: the burden is on my respondent to demonstrate why SpaceX is a relevant analogy/counterargument.
There was a prior HN discussion around who owns what IP when public funding is involved. It was an interesting discussion for those who are interested:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9268349
Most antibiotics are naturally occurring biological compounds (besides things like sulfonamides). Given how little upside there tends to be for developing new antibiotics vs. the public good that new ones can bring for treating resistant bugs, this is one of the very few areas where I'm firmly in favor of allowing patent protection.
Well if it is patented and the terms are very lenient, because it's owned by the government, then that's the best of both worlds since it prevents some other company from patenting it and charging heaps and then it gets put into the public domain in 20 years (or whatever the term is).
Could they be patenting it to prevent others from doing so?
They'll probably make some money out of it, to fund more research, but hopefully any deal with pharmaceutical companies should have some pricing clause to make this widely affordable to public health services.
Under the Supreme Court's decision in Myriad (which held you can't patent naturally-occurring gene sequences by themselves), you probably can't patent a naturally-occurring biological compound.
> The researchers then checked snot from hospitalized patients. Of 187 samples, all but one were colonized by either S. aureus or S. lugdunensis
> S. lugdunensis, was killing S. aureus. Its weapon of choice? A small compound dubbed lugdunin
> The German researchers who performed the study have filed a patent for lugdunin
Are we really allowing people to patent naturally occurring biological compounds these days? Shouldn't the patent be for specific treatments derived from their findings on lugdunin, not the compound itself?